The Harlot

you would pray. Father, I pray this morning as we consider a difficult text that you would make it clear, or at least make those parts that were able to make clear, make them clear and drive them home. I pray for those who are blind that you would open their eyes and those who are deaf to the gospel that you would open their ears. I pray for myself that you be in my head and in my thinking and in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In Jesus' name, we pray these things, amen, and amen. You know, several years ago, I preached through the book of Genesis, and you know, every now and then if you're a preacher, you're sort of preaching, you think that was just horrible. I mean, you could tell. I was preaching on Abraham and Melchizedek, and I went home after that, and I was just mulling over it and I said to my wife, Judy, I said, yeah, I shouldn't think I went very well. I said, maybe I should do it again next week, but cover it from a different angle, or maybe I should do it from Hebrews, and she very politely said, you know, I think you should just do chapter 15. Do the next thing. You'll be fine. In other words, she's like it was horrible, but don't like do it again. Just keep going. And as I've been like looking at Revelation 17 all week this morning, I was sort of like thanking God that Judy's out of town. So we'll see how it goes this morning. This text is really, we sort of jump into the deep end when you get to Revelation 17, because up to this point, we've looked at, you know, the purpose of the book of Revelation, you know, that Jesus has won, he will win, and he is winning. We looked at the fact that the letter to seven churches that were really being oppressed by the Roman Empire, and that kind of stuff. We looked at seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls of God's wrath, and today, once you get into 17 through basically the rest of the book, in some sense, you get an explanation of the bold number six and bowl number seven. But it's helpful to learn a little bit to know a little bit of history as well. In the year 410, I believe it was 410, if I remember correctly, in the year 410, the Roman Empire, the capital, Rome, was overrun by the Visigoths. In other words, in the 5th century, Rome was basically the head over the whole world. They were the empire that ruled everything, and somehow they were able to be defeated in a week's time. And that puzzled many people. Puzzled a lot of people. How could that happen? How in the world could an empire that stretches throughout the known world just fall overnight? And a theologian named Augustine came along and he wrote a book that I don't think I've met anyone who's ever read the whole thing because it's his longest book called The City of God. And in the city of God, written probably about the middle of the 5th century, he wrote it in order to describe for people and to explain to people why Rome fell the way it did. And not just Rome, but every city like Rome. And so he spent the first part of the city of God, writing about the deficiencies of the Roman Empire, the moral failures, the excesses of different things like sex and debauchery, drinking all these kind of things, how the philosophy was flawed, all of that kind of stuff. But where it gets more interesting is the second part in which he contrasts the city of Rome, or what he would call the city of man, with the city of God. In other words, he would say there are two cities that actually are always in existence. And they don't necessarily exist side by side, but they almost exist on top of each other. They exist in the same space, but in different dimensions, if you will. And the two cities, the city of man and the city of God, well, the city of God is basically defined by the worship of God and the people in the city of God follow the Lamb. And the city of man is the exact opposite. It's defined by man, and it's defined by pleasure and sensuality, and not just that, but needing to take care of yourself, to letting the cares of every day, to letting everything that goes on around the world be the thing that rules you and concern you, rather than the things of God. And he actually traces it through the whole Bible, how the whole Bible is sort of a story of these two cities that are competing. Now why is that important? Because where did he get that information? We got that idea from the book of Revelation. You see, once you get into chapter 17, which we're going to start today, you're basically going to spend all of your time focusing on two cities and two women. And the two cities are basically the city of man and the city of God, or the city of the dragon and the city of the Lamb. And the two women are basically the harlot, or forgive me for being crest the whore of Babylon, and the bride of Christ. Either the harlot, or the bride, either the city of God, or the city of man. And basically as we come to the end, remember Revelation has taken us over and over again, from the time Jesus ascended to heaven to basically the end of history. And as you get to the end of the book of Revelation, you end up at the end of history. And at the end remember, I don't want to spoil, I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, but the city of God wins. The city of God is all there is. In fact, a lot of our role as Christians is to make our city begin to look more and more like that city. So before we jump into this text, Revelation 17, let me give you a little bit of background, if it's your first time here, or you've not been here through the whole series. Remember, there are enemies of God in the book of Revelation. You have the Lamb, and the counterpart to the Lamb is this one called the dragon. And the dragon is that ancient serpent. It's basically Satan. And Satan lives to persecute the saints and that kind of thing. And in the book of Revelation, you see also this fine, thick line drawn between those who follow the Lamb and those who follow the dragon, or the beast, which is going to come later. In other words, the more and more we've looked at this book, you realize that they're not sort of followers of the Lamb on one hill and followers of the beast are dragon on the other hill and all people in the middle are neutral. There are no people in the middle. You either are a follower of the Lamb, or you are a follower of the dragon, at least according to the book of Revelation. Now, who is the beast? We looked at the different beast, the first beast, I hope I made a good case to you, that's actually sort of the government. And I'm not just bad in the other, there's purpose for government and there's good purpose for government, but it's more like government gone wild. When government gets out of control and government begins to get too much power and take too much power, the book of Revelation would say that that's what the one of the methods the dragon uses to persecute God's people. So that's beast number one and beast number two is religion in service of beast number one, the government. And if you remember the seven churches, that's exactly what was happening in the Roman Empire. That the government was becoming big and onerous and bureaucratic on one hand, on the other hand, you had priests who were sent out to make sure that people worshipped Caesar as a God. And so you had religion in service of government and all of those things came together to either persecute or at least harass and make difficult the life of Christians. That's back there in the time in Rome. And so you have the dragon, you have beast number one and beast number two. And then this morning, chapter 17, we're introduced to another character called the prostitute or the harlot, you know, choose your word. But all the sudden there's a woman here. And so now as we look in here, we're going to, I think I have four points for you this morning, lucky you, that we're going to look at a vision that we're going to see in this text, we're going to see a description, we're going to see a victory, and finally we're going to talk about judgment. In other words, the book of Revelation is full of visions and this is another one. He says after the bowl comes, he says, and I had another vision. And then the angel is going to give John the description of this vision. And in that vision, we're going to see a victory, we're going to see judgment. And so what do we see in the vision? Let me read to you the first few verses. It says, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came to me and said, come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who has seated on many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers of earth have become drunk. So the first thing you see is this angel comes and it's one of the bowl angels that has poured out the bowls of God's wrath, and he's coming with some more information. He says, come and I will show you this woman basically. He says that this great prostitute who has seated on many waters and the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality. So a lot we could say about any of this stuff, but just as a brief reminder, remember that sexual immorality is not just sexual immorality, although that's true oftentimes. Most of the time in the Old Testament it's a metaphor for spiritual adultery, right? That God calls himself the husband of Israel, and they continue to follow other lovers. And because of that, because they do that, they're guilty of adultery, spiritual adultery, but also this woman is called a prostitute. And there's lots of language in the Old Testament in the prophets and in even like Proverbs 5, 6, and 7 about the prostitute. And what's the job of the prostitute in Proverbs 5, 3, 6, 7 in the prophets? What the prostitute's job is to do is to lure God's people. Her job is to be seductive. We'll look at that in a moment. So he's just opening and saying, I'm going to show you this woman. And she's in verses 3 and 4. What does she look like? She says, and he carried me away in the Spirit in a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting in a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was a raid in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls holding in her hand, a golden cup full of abominations and of impurities of her sexual immorality. Well, this woman is presented to us, and I think we're supposed to think she is beautiful. And not only is she supposed to be beautiful, but she is attired in such a way that at least the people who heard this in the seven churches that were under Roman domination, they would have heard that and said, wow, you see, the more scarlet might it would be you're wealthy, but you were scarlet in purple, kings were purple. And she's decked out in jewels. And yet even in this before we get into what she actually does, you get a hint. And you have caught it if you've probably seen the third Indiana Jones movie. Is it the last crusade? People argue about which one of the three is the best, and I don't know anyone who likes number two, but let's just say give argument. Remember number three, I tend to think what are the good scenes in the movies? And one of the best scenes in all of the films is when they finally find the arch or the holy grail, and they're standing in there and there's all the cups in this room. The room is just full of various different cups, and most of them are just beautiful. And Indiana's in there and there's a knight who's been guarding him for like hundreds of years, he's older than dust literally, and that evil man comes in with a gun, and basically he's going to choose the cup of Christ. And he goes and he finds the one with the most jewels that's the most beautiful, and he takes it and he dips it in the water, and he drinks a great drought, and then you remember he sort of chalked, he dehydrates and dies. And do you remember that it's one of the most deadpan lines of any movie, but it's the greatest line, the camera goes to the old knight, and he simply says he chose poorly. That's what you should be thinking when you read about this this this harlot. Man, she looks good, but do I want to drink what she's got in that cup? Because what does she have in the cup? It says she had a golden cup full of abominations and impurities of her sexual immorality. On the outside, it looks good. On the outside, she looks good. On the outside, she's desirous, but what she has to offer will ultimately kill you. That's what you need to be thinking here. And then notice in the mystery, verse five, it says, and on her forehead was written the name of a mystery Babylon, the great mother prostitutes in the earth's abominations. Verse six says, and I saw and I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. So we get a hint at who she is right from the beginning when he says, I saw this name written on her forehead was this mystery Babylon mother prostitutes. And if you look through the Old Testament, Babylon is basically a technical term for that city or that state or that nation that would set itself against the purpose of God, the tower of Babylon, you have Babylon, you had Tyre and places like that that set themselves against God, they wouldn't turn to God. And so who is John to whom is John referring to here? There's no question in almost anyone's mind, whether no matter what angle you come at this text from, that the people in the first century would have, when they heard this, they would have thought of Rome, that Rome is the one, that Rome is the harlot that has not only seduced people, but also is drunk with the blood of the saints. So you have this angel who gives this vision, you have this woman, and she's actually quite beautiful and quite desirous, and then we also find that she's a little bit bloodthirsty. And when I think it's interesting, it's the challenge that she presents to us, and not just the challenge that she presents to us, but the challenge that she in combination with the beast present to us. If you've ever read Pilgrim's progress, remember it's about an allegory about a man who becomes a Christian, he lives in this place called the city of destruction, and he becomes a Christian, and immediately he realizes I need to go to the Celestial city. In other words, he needs the journey from the city of destruction to the Celestial city, or in our lingo this morning, he needs to make it from the city of man to the city of God. And you and I are on that same trajectory, if you're a Christian at least, the challenge is how hard is it to live as a Christian? I think what you learn from this passage is that it's really hard to live as a Christian. Does that mean you shouldn't try? No, but let me give you some idea of why it's so difficult. Basically, for someone who is trying to walk from the city of man to the city of God or from the city of destruction to the Celestial city, and remember Jesus had entered by the narrow gates and walked on the narrow path. Well, on one side of the road you have the beast, and on the other side of the road you have the woman. And if you think about it, remember how the beast motivates people. The beast is constantly motivating by fear and shame and intimidation. Remember, all the seven churches is always an admonition to overcome, to hang in there. Don't give in to the beast. Well, the beast on one hand works externally, and he's constantly trying to motivate by fear and force. On the other side of the road, however, is the woman. And her motivation is more internal because her motivations have to do with our own lusts. And she's seductive. So on one hand, the beast is trying to force us off the road. And on the other hand, the woman is saying, come over here, come be with me. In other words, if you're afraid of the beast, the woman would, I would imagine. I know looks that much better. Does she not? Why would I buck the thing that's trying to kill me when I could actually go experience pleasure with the thing that's saying it's going to take care of me? And so for the Christian, it's difficult to maintain, and the problem is, is how do you do that? I can tell you this, if you spend a lot of time staring at the beast, which I know a lot of people do, you end up knocked off the road anyway. And if you spend too much time staring or anytime staring at the woman, you end up being lured off of the road. What's the only thing you can do? Honestly, it sounds simple, but I think the book of Hebrews tells us, keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. He's been through that. He walked that road already on our behalf. He promises to get us down the road. And if we get knocked off the road, we can be pulled back on. But the fact is, is we need to keep moving toward him. And if you remember, if you've read Pilgrim's Progress, that Pilgrim and his friend Faithful actually stop and vanity fair and vanity fair, that's where you could buy anything. Literally everything is for sale and vanity fair. And they get there, and the people of vanity fair, they become upset with them pretty quickly because they're not buying. And people say, won't you buy anything? And they say, we will buy the truth. They end up in jail because of that. Ultimately, the dungeon of the dragon doubting castle. So the question is, how do you deal with that or what's the issue? I'm going to take it a step further. Really, one of the big issues in the life of Christians and non-Christians is the issue of idolatry. That's really at some level what the woman symbolizes. You see, if you ask anyone who's been in church for a while, what sin is, or if you ask someone who's not been in church, what sin is, I think before I became a Christian, if you said, what is sin, I just said, I don't know, I guess it's doing bad things. And if you ask someone who's been a Christian for years and you say, what is sin? Most people are doing bad things. I know for many of you that the catechism answered, right? Any wants of conformity on to or transgression of the law of God is what immediately came to mind. But in reality, most people just think, yeah, it's breaking God's laws. You're doing something bad. And you know what? That's absolutely true. But for a lot of people, that really doesn't mean a hill beans anymore. One of the things, and I was wondering, is I looked at this, I'm almost convicted that I don't, I wonder if I don't talk about idolatry enough. What is idolatry at the end of the day? It's making good things and the ultimate things. It's making good things and the ultimate things. And how does that, how does it jive with God's law? You know, Martin Luther's, he comments on the 10 commandments is a treatise. And basically he says, you can't break the 2nd through the 10th commandment without also breaking the 1st commandment or the 1st commandment, you should have no other gods before me. And if we could just not break the 1st commandment, the rest of them wouldn't be a problem, but we do. We make good things. What are some of the things that I'm talking about? Money, sex, power, history, control, nationalism, almost anything within ism can become an idol. Anything that's good can become an idol. Food can become an idol. Get this, family can become an idol. If the most important thing in your life is making sure that your family is taking care of and that your family isn't going to be exposed to anything bad ever, and that you're going to categorize, you have the perfect Christian family, that could become an idol. Money can become an idol. Anything can become an idol. The problem with idols is they promise you something but then they can't, that they can never deliver. They promise you satisfaction, they promise you comfort, they promise you in some sense salvation, and the more you take of them, the more you need. It's like Edmund and the Chronicles of Narnie with Turkish delight. All he wanted was more and more and more. There's never enough to satisfy him. What is the answer to our idolatries? One, you have to identify them. What's the thing that if it was taken away from you would just be devastating? I mean that you just go you could almost not function. I don't mean to be like the death of a family member. I mean like you know your woodworking tools or your gun collection or your flat screen TV or your children. A lot of kids don't go on the mission field I think because the parents don't want them to be far away from home. That can become an idol. We could go on and on and on and on. You have to identify the idol but then you have to replace it with the only thing that can satisfy you. Remember what Jesus said over and over? Anyone who's thirsty come on to me and drink. And it was hungry come into me and you'll never be hungry again. You're you hunger for all these good things but if you're trying to meet your souls in need with them instead of with Jesus you'll never be satisfied. What the woman signifies is idolatry not just personally but she signifies a culture that is defined by idolatry. A culture that is just defined by sexuality and everything else and money and government and bureaucracy. For them it was Rome. For us by the way it's the United States. We may be the most consumeristic society that ever existed. And what if all that was gone tomorrow? You know what John says here it might be it might be but what's interesting to me about this whole text right at this point is notice what it says in at the end of verse six in the beginning of verse seven. John says when I saw her I marveled greatly and the angel said to me why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and the beast and the seven heads and the ten horns that carry her. What's interesting here is when John says I marveled. He's not saying I was shocked. He's not saying whoa he showed me to say I couldn't believe it. What he's saying is he said the more I marveled and in other words he's almost sucked in to what he sees. The vision of the prostitute and how glorious she is and how beautiful she looks and how seductive she is even for John who's having the vision it seems to be sucking him into. And the angel steps in and says ho ho ho why do you marvel? Let me tell you what that really is. It's pretty instructive that even John getting this vision of heaven can be can be overwhelmed by how glorious it seems or appears to be and the angel comes and explains to him what's really going on. The first thing you see is that the beast is mocked at one of my favorite parts of this. If you remember if you look in the book of Revelation oftentimes it says of the lamb that it's him he was and is and is to come that's a description given about him that he who was and is and is to come and of God he who was and is and is to come sometimes it just says who was and is because he's already here but did you notice what it says about the beast it says in verse 8 says the beast that you saw was and is not and is about to rise from the bottled most pit and go to destruction and he says that later one more time the beast who was and is not in other words the lamb is he who was and is and is to come down from heaven to make all things right the beast is he who was and who is not and is he who rises up from the pit of destruction from the bottled most pit in other words he comes from hell to to wreak his vengeance on the saints but he is completely opposite of the one who can save you from your sins he looks the same and he tries to act the same but at the end of the day only Jesus is the one who was and is to come the beast is not he is not the one who can save you he is not the one who can take care of you he's not the one who can hold you he's not the one that can do anything for you that you need done and I think what this vision does in some ways is it's mocking that about him now verses 9 through 13 the very first thing in verse 9 is maybe the most instructive about this text he says this calls for a mind with wisdom the seven heads or seven mountains on which the woman has seated they are also seven kings five of whom have fallen one is the others yet to come and while he does it's coming must remain only a little while as for the beast that was not and is not that was and is not and is it is an eighth but belongs to the seven and goes to destruction and the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast these are one mind in the hand of and hand over their power and authority to the beast I don't have ever told you you this just me and a couple of my friends here the I'm dyslexic but none of my dyslexic I have this thing called discount coutulian which means if you tell me your phone numbers 555 1212 I'll usually write down 2121 so I'm not good at math I guess what I'm telling you and I have to be completely honest with you when I've read this text I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about and may never know exactly what he's talking about so I thought what I could do at least was what do we know what can we say for sure about what we've read here it seems pretty complicated there are a few things we can know for sure the first thing is when he says there's seven heads and seven mountains most people think that's another reference to Rome because Rome was known as the city on seven hills okay and then you have ten horns and ten kings remember at the end of last chapter in 16 right before either the battle of Armageddon or the event of Armageddon depending what perspective you're coming at it from the kings of the earth were coming they were gathering in to to make war we'll see that in a minute and so ten is the perfect number and ten is the horns about power and king so the most important though I think is verse 13 it says these are one mind and hand over their power and authority to the beast in other words whether it happened in the past or is happening right now or will happen in the future what he's saying is that the powers of this world the kings of this earth who represent their perspective respective nations they hand over the keys to the car to the beast in other words they allied themselves with the beast and that's consistent with the rest of the book of Revelation that says you're either allied with the beast or you're allied with the lamb but here's the good news here's the good news for those of you who are followers of the lamb notice what happens in verse 14 this victory in verse 14 it says they will make war on the lamb and the lamb will conquer them for he is lord of lords king of kings and those with him are called and chosen and faithful in other words you read the book of Revelation you get completely wrapped around the axle about what the five kings and was it the five it was at five of the emperors and which ones of those was at the end of the day I have no idea but what is completely clear is however these kings array align themselves and whatever way they come they are doing it in order to make war against the lamb and notice what it said it says they will make war and the lamb will conquer period it doesn't even say there's going to be a big battle it doesn't say they're going to do anything it just says they're going to try and he will conquer why because all of the kings of the world will come against the lamb but what they've failed to realize apparently or at least acknowledge is that he is king of kings and lord of lords he has authority over all things you cannot defeat him but what's even more important in this is notice the descriptors at the end he says they will make war in the lamb and the lamb will conquer them for he is the lord of lords and king of kings and those with him are called and chosen and faithful that's god's god's people in other words whether this event here is happening in the future or it's happening you know sort of currently or it happened in the past what it's saying is that god's people participate with the lamb in his victory I don't know what that would look like if this is a future event but I can tell you what it looks like for sure as a past event because as a past event all of god's people all those who would trust in Jesus have participated and have partaken of the victory of the lamb and it was his victory on the cross that at the cross Jesus completely and utterly defeated sin he completely defeated the curse that is not only on us but on all of creation and when he rose from the dead he rose as the first born of all creation ascended into heaven at the right hand of god and what the gospel says is that if I have trusted him I am actually in him there that I participate in the victory that he won at the cross and I participate in the victory that he's winning right this minute and that's why he could say those who are with him are called and chosen and faithful he could say it before a battle even happens before anything happens why because the reason you are called and chosen and faithful is because of the work of Jesus not because of what you've done in other words god looks at you and he looks at me and our names have been changed right we sing that song every now and then wound it outcast lonely and afraid what is what is the new name given to those who are found in Jesus who participate in his victory one of them is faithful one of them is chosen one of them is called and that's not because of anything you've done but because of everything that Jesus has done for you the king of kings and lord and lord has seen fit to make you call chosen and faithful not because of what you've done but because of what he's done and the question is will you embrace that because you either embrace that or you embrace what comes next which is the destruction of this city notice judgment verses 15 through 18 it says in the angel said to me the waters that you saw where the prostitute is seated are peoples and the multitudes and nations and languages and the ten horns that you saw they in the beast will hate the prostitute they will make her desolate and naked and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire for god has put it in their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing it over and handing over the royal power to the beast until the words of god are fulfilled and the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth so yesterday I was literally in the airport yesterday asking other pastors what do you think this means I was so desperate I've like I've been reading all week what do you think it means what's going on here and none was found and Duke had tell me and then it's one of my buddies was talking it suddenly hit me that it all comes together what's happening here I think is simply this remember we were coming off the seven bowls of god's wrath and one of the wrath angels is now giving John this vision and what you see here in these last verses is the wrath of god not brought down upon the kings of the earth it's simply revealed what do I mean by that did you notice as I was reading or if you've read through this before how god is not actually not doing anything here at some point the beast and his followers turn against the prostitute in other words god doesn't have to do anything except put it on their hearts to do what they want and what they want to do is destroy one another so the way god judges the the beast and the harlot is simply to let them at each other the book of Romans and chapter one that he uses the language of also turning people over to themselves and as the worst possible thing that could happen to you is that god turn you over to yourself so god let you go in any direction you want to follow any path or any course that your heart leads but his gracious intervention is what actually stops that I remember I was in Ethiopia a few years back and a friend of mine was asking you we're talking and she said Tommy you think god's judging America I do and that's what do you want to know whether I think that and she said well yeah and I said no she said well what about all the things that are going on and I said I don't really qualify that I said I don't think he has to proactively judge America or any country all he has to do is let us do what we want right if you're seeing a bumper sticker there's a bumper sticker that says there's a reason for everything than underneath it says sometimes the reason is your stupid decisions in other words actions have consequences most of the time and if you make foolish economic decisions you reap foolish economic consequences if you make decisions with regarding to how precious life is or isn't you eventually reap those consequences if you have a one child policy or something eventually you reap those consequences so all god has to do is let humanity do what they want I don't know if any of you started watching there's a new show out called revolution seen that I think it's based on a book that I read a couple years ago called one second after and one second after basically it's written by of it's a plausible scenario written by a former admiral in the navy and basically if a nuclear bomb went off over say the United States at about 20 miles in the air it would send an electromagnetic pulse that would fry every single electric thing within the whole country and it not just fry the power grids but any kind of computer chip and every car after like 1975 nothing works that in the blink of an eye the world would the United States would be back to about the 18th century now think if you're all back in the 18th century how many of you people I know some of you do how many of you know how to raise animals and then skin them and then cut up the meat and butcher them and do everything no one knows how to do anything and basically in the book and even in the movie society just begins to crumble and it begins to crumble because the thing that held them together was just so tenuous and those kinds of things that could happen to the question is what would happen if something like that happened and we're turned over to ourselves fortunately god hasn't done that you see again the good news of the gospel is that god doesn't turn you over to yourself at least not for those he's chosen at least not for those he's called what does he do for you he intervenes he intervenes it's with the life and death of Jesus on your behalf and he's constantly intervening with the work of his Holy Spirit and that's why you hear sometimes don't grieve the Holy Spirit because god is constantly intervening think about that let me pray for us Father I pray that as we we work our way through this difficult text that you would help us to understand that you bring to mind our idols that we might repent of them that you bring to mind Jesus that we might fly to him I pray that you would just simply come and make us more and more reliant upon him more and more followers Christ's name we pray Amen and Amen