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8.21.22 Nahum 2 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  My name is Sam. I'm the adult ministries pastor here. And it is a privilege to worship the Lord with you all today. If you've got your Bibles, open them up to Nahum chapter 2. There's nothing like when the Spirit stirs up the truth within us and we desire with all of our being, like David would say, like a deer panting for streams of water. So my soul longs for you, oh God. What a joy it is.
• 0:36
  Well, again, my name is Sam. If I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you, I would love to after the service. And we are going to continue in our study of the word of the Lord in the book of Nahum today. And before we do so.
• 0:48
  If you have not yet connected with a Connect home, but you really want to get plugged into one of those, please come and find me after the service. A bunch of homes have changed their meeting times today. Some are meeting tonight, some are meeting right after third service, and we'd love to get you plugged in with the community here. And so come and find me and I can connect you with leaders or just let you know what time they're meeting this afternoon.
• 1:14
  Also, it's been an exciting season here at the church. Now that the summer is over, I've begun actually doing some things for my new position here at the church in the adult ministries. And so there's going to be some exciting things coming in the life of the church over the next year. Some trips, adult education is going to be, hopefully just become a more robust ministry here on Wednesday nights. So really, really looking forward to that. It's a joy to serve the church and to...
• 1:43
  get to know you all. I love my job, and I can say praise the Lord for that. Well, Nahum, we're going to continue in our short study of this book. Last week, we studied chapter 1, verses 2 to 15, and we studied God's character. Who is God? But then also, what does God do? So if you remember from last week, we looked at how God is just, and his justice against sin and against wickedness is perfect.
• 2:13
  And it flows out of his love, excuse me, for what is good and what is righteous. But then we also looked at how God is perfectly good. He's incredibly gracious. And none has extended grace like he extends grace. And so today we're going to continue in chapter 2.
• 2:34
  If you know the context of Nahum, he's prophesying against the wicked nation of Assyria and specifically against the capital city of this wicked nation, the capital city of Nineveh. And so he's going to prophesy this morning about the destruction of the destroyer, the destruction of the destroyer. Now, before we jump in, I want to tell you a funny story that I heard. There was this conference that was being held at an English club. And at the conference, there was this Japanese man.
• 3:04
  who had come to the conference and was sitting at his table and he was looking rather nervous. And an Englishman walked into the club and saw this Japanese man sitting there and thought he would teach him some proper English. And so he sat down at the table across from the man and he said, he picked up a knife and he said, you see this? This be knifey. He picked up a spoon. He said, this be spoony. And this be forky.
• 3:35
  And this be platey. And as the conference was going on, all the preliminary speakers, after they had finished their talks, much to the shock of the Englishman, the Japanese man was the keynote speaker. And so he ascended the platform and he gave his speech in perfect English. And then after giving his speech, he came and sat down back at the table and looked at the Englishman and said, you likey speechy? Aren't there times when we love when people get what's coming to them? Isn't that true?
• 4:10
  When arrogance or humiliation or injustice is repaid to the dealer, in our study this morning, the prophet Nahum foretells the fall of the world power at the time. The most powerful nation, Assyria, and specifically the demolition of the capital city, Nineveh. And he prophesies that the scatterer will be scattered. The plunderer will be plundered. The unjust will be...
• 4:39
  And I've titled this morning's message, The Destroyer Destroyed. And we're going to look at a few key points from this passage. In verse 1, we're going to see that the oppressor is warned. In verse 2, we're going to see that the oppressed are encouraged. In verses 3 to 9, we're going to see that the destroyer is destroyed. And then in verses 10 to 13, we're going to see that the fallen is forgotten.
• 5:02
  And so I'm going to read this passage as we study it because of the length, but I am going to pray for us this morning. As we're looking at a passage with a lot of history in the background and a lot of excitement in its words, that the Holy Spirit would stir up within us eyes to see the bigness, the grandeur of our God, and then eyes that are willing to be comforted in the hope that he would have for us.
• 5:32
  And so, let me pray for us, and then we will jump into this passage. God, your name is great. Your ways are awesome. And were you to show up now, we would fall on our faces in awe and wonder and fear. You do all that you please. None can stay your hand. You are God Almighty, and there is no other.
• 6:21
  A little bit more as you truly are this morning. Fill us with courage from Nahum chapter 2, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, let's jump in. First, in verse 1, we see that the oppressor is warned. So look with me at Nahum chapter 2, verse 1. He says,
• 6:52
  This episode, chapter 2, of Nahum begins with an action scene. Nahum states that an attacker has arrived at Nineveh's doorstep ready to make war. Get ready, he says to Nineveh. Man your posts, fasten your armor, and sharpen your swords. Brace yourselves. It's really interesting that this enemy of Nineveh is described here as a scatterer because it...
• 7:18
  shows us that there's an irony in this verse. The nation of Assyria had a deportation policy that they would exercise over conquered nations. Whenever they would defeat another people or nation in war, they would relocate all of those people from their homeland.
• 7:38
  and spread them throughout the empire. And their empire would have included modern-day Iraq, Syria, parts of southern Turkey, at its height, even down into Egypt. But they would relocate these people to mitigate the threat of revolt. Because if you can imagine, they overtake a people, and rather than just leaving them there to gain strength, they're going to spread them all out. And you can't really launch a revolt when you're spread out amongst people you don't even know.
• 8:08
  And so they had this deportation policy. Now, this is exactly what happened to Israel, the top 10 tribes of Israel in the year 722 BC. Assyria came in, they attacked Israel, and they relocated all of these peoples throughout the empire, and those top 10 tribes were never recovered. And the irony comes here by saying there is a scatterer that has come up against you, because Nahum is saying, you who have scattered other peoples,
• 8:37
  you will be scattered and you will not recover. This scatterer is a reference to the Medo-Babylonian coalition that had come up to attack Assyria, which we're going to explore more in a minute. But there's another interesting detail to note here in verse 1. In the Hebrew text, the second chapter of Nahum actually begins in chapter 1, verse 15 in our English Bibles, which we concluded with last week. Look at verse 15 of chapter 1.
• 9:07
  I'm going to read here going into chapter 2, but he says, Behold upon the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace. Keep your feasts, O Judah, fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you. He is utterly cut off. The scatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts, watch the road, dress for battle, collect all your strength. Nahum speaks good news to God's people scattered throughout Assyria that this worthless, brutal,
• 9:37
  cruel nation would be put to an end. And I like how one commentator writes it. He says, while Judah celebrates good news on the mountains, bad news is on the horizon for Nineveh. And so we see Nahum here is warning Nineveh, this oppressor. So he warns the oppressor. And then verse two, we see that the oppressed are encouraged. Look here at verse two. For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob as the majesty of Israel. For plunderers have plundered them and ruined
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  He takes a little side note here and he addresses God's people with a word of hope, promising a future restoration of their peace and their splendor. Now Israel here is pictured as, if you will, a tree in the garden of God. And this powerful but cruel nation, Assyria, has trampled into the garden of God and has sawn off branches from God's tree.
• 10:34
  And so God says, now I'm going to destroy the people who destroyed my creation. And as 2 Kings 17 tells us, Israel had been judged by God through Assyria for their rampant idolatry and heinous wickedness. But Nahum here is saying that their failure would not be the final word.
• 10:59
  Their failure is not the final word. God's faithfulness is the final word. And so Nahum is saying, as God is going to bring down Assyria, he's going to lift up his people, Israel. And so after giving this brief promise, Nahum moves on to describe the destruction of the destroyer in detail in verses 3 to 9. Now, these verses are saturated with imagery. And so as I read them, I would encourage you to do this.
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  Grab the best seat in your mind's movie theater and watch this battle scene as we read it, okay? Look at verse three. The shield of his, the scatterer's, mighty men is red. His soldiers are clothed in scarlet. The chariots come with flashing metal on the day he musters them. The cypress spears are brandished. The chariots race madly through the streets. They rush to and fro through the squares. They gleam like torches. They dart.
• 11:59
  like lightning. He remembers his officers. They stumble as they go. They hasten to the wall. The siege tower is set up. The river gates are open. The palace melts away. Its mistress is stripped. She is carried off, her slave girls lamenting, moaning like doves and beating their breasts. Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. Halt, halt, they cry, but none turns back. Plunder the silver. Plunder the gold. There is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of all.
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  precious things now as i said a minute ago there is a heap of historical background information which if you and i know really make these verses come even more alive than they are right now and the first piece of background has to do with verses three to five right so the scatterer's army he says are clothed in scarlet
• 12:50
  bearing red shields. They have chariots, cypress spears for their charioteers. Chariots are racing madly through the streets. This is really fascinating. This shows us historically that this scatterer is Babylon. In Ezekiel chapter 23, verses 14 to 15, Ezekiel prophesies about this army clothed in red and says that it is Babylon and that all of Babylon's soldiers, because of
• 13:20
  the magnificence of their uniforms all look like officers. And then in verse 6 of that same chapter, in Ezekiel chapter 23, he says that Assyria was clothed in blue and purple. And so it is Babylon who has come up to scatter Assyria. In fact, he says they are already at your walls. History tells us that...
• 13:42
  the Medes, the Median Empire, had attempted to conquer Nineveh in the year 614 BC, but were unsuccessful. And so what they did was they went to Babylon and they made an alliance. They said, do you want to go get them together? So they did. And in 612, they attack Nineveh and it is successful. These verses, especially verses six to nine, describe that attack.
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  Now you can envision when you're reading this, right, quickly changing scenes, moving from the soldiers themselves to the metal on the chariots gleaming in the sunlight, to the cypress spears brandished by the charioteers. The battle quickly moves from outside the city up and over the walls through siege machines and into the city itself. Nineveh was not as impregnable as the world might have assumed.
• 14:28
  And the pace of the battle here is so quick that soldiers and officers are literally stumbling as they run into the city and inflict mass casualties. Chaos ensues as Nineveh proves itself unprepared for the attack. Chariots zip through the streets. Screams of citizens are drowned out by the sounds of war, and the Medo-Babylonian army washes over Nineveh like a tidal wave into a sandbox.
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  One scholar writes this, Nineveh was receiving a lethal dose of its own poison. Now, verses 6 to 9 illustrate four steps in the fall of this city that we're going to take verse by verse, right? 6, 7, 8, and 9. And so, let's look at this. First, he says, the walls are breached and the royal palace falls. Look at verse 6. The river gates are opened, the palace melts away.
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  Now, not far from the ancient city Nineveh, which would be around modern-day Mosul, Iraq, not far on the west side ran the Tigris River. Now, the Tigris River was the major river in this area, and one of its tributary rivers, called the Hussar, actually ran through the city.
• 15:43
  And the city had an advanced system of dams and gates that controlled the water flow into the city. And King Sennacherib had actually built a freshwater reservoir just above the city that they were able to use. And so what the Medes and the Babylonians do is they overtake the city, right? They climb the walls, they get in, and they take control of this water system and of that freshwater reservoir. They open the floodgates in the reservoir.
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  They start directing the water differently through these dams and gates toward the walls. Now, why would they do that? Because you can imagine a massive city wall. You're not getting through that easily. But what if all of the ground under the wall is all soaked with water and becomes mud? That wall collapses. And in fact, this is what they did on the north wall of Nineveh. Thousands of yards of wall. They flooded it so that they could get into...
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  The city. And along with the collapse of the walls comes the collapse of the will to defend the city. He says not only are the river gates opened, right, but the palace melts away. He says the palace is overwhelmed and the nation's government is undone. And it's interesting that he uses that phrase melt away here because it harkens back to chapter 1 verse 5. Look at 1 verse 5. We studied this last week, right? The mountains quake before God. The hills melt.
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  The earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. The Lord had come up against Nineveh, and Nineveh would melt just like the hills. The word for palace here is elsewhere translated temple, and it really shows the contrast between the pride and arrogance and so-called power of the Assyrian kings against the one who sits on the highest throne, Yahweh.
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  The kings of Assyria, once proud in their brutality and their evil, have no more thrones to sit on, showing that no king reigns forever except one, God. He alone rules forever. So that's the first step, right? The walls come down, the palace is attacked and falls. The second step is the exile that is decreed over Nineveh.
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  and then the mourning of the citizens within the city. Look at verse 7. Nahum writes, Now the meaning of the Hebrew wording here is a little uncertain. I like how the NIV translate this verse.
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  Because the NIV says it is decreed that Nineveh be exiled and carried away. And again, you can hear the irony here, right? This nation that once attacked surrounding nations and carried them off into exile, he says, you're going to be the ones who are exiled now. You're going to be scattered, right? We get the idea that Assyria is getting what she deserves. Her cruelty is being returned on her own head.
• 18:54
  It was also possible, however, that this phrase, right, its mistress is stripped, she is carried off, referred to the, or was a reference to the false god Ishtar. Ishtar. This would have been a false goddess that was worshipped in the city of Nineveh, and she was the goddess of fertility and war. So you can imagine the goddess of war just got beat in war.
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  and she is carried away captive. And the slave girls here could have been those who served in Ishtar's temple who are now mourning in their moaning at their goddess's defeat. Now, Hyland, remember the context of Nineveh. Remember why we're studying this book, right? The whole point that we've been stressing over the last few weeks is the importance of passing down the praiseworthy deeds of God to the next generation, right? Two generations before this,
• 19:47
  Jonah had preached. And when the word of the Lord came from the mouth of Jonah, the people of Nineveh moaned and repented. But now here, they're moaning at the word of the Lord coming from the mouth of Nahum, and he says it's too late to repent. So that's the second step. Exile is decreed. There's mourning. The third step is that the nobles realize that nothing can be done to stop the invasion. Look at verse 8 with me.
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  Verse 8 says, Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. Halt, halt, they cry, but none turns back. Like an above-ground pool, if you can imagine it, that is punctured, the people of Nineveh are pouring out from the city as they flee for their lives. And the once full city is now completely empty. The water control system that was once occasion for pride and for protection has run dry.
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  And as disorder and fear spread, the government officials, the leaders, the aristocrats are crying, stop, stop, stop, but to no avail. No one looks back as their city is destroyed. Everyone just keeps running. So they try to stop it. They can't. Final step, verse 9, is the plundering of Nineveh. Look at verse 9. He says, plunder the silver, plunder the gold. There is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of all precious things.
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  For hundreds of years, Nineveh had become rich off of both the spoils of war and the tribute that they exacted on other nations. And so really they had stripped surrounding nations of their wealth in order to acquire it only for themselves. And so Nineveh would have been a luxurious, opulent, beautiful city. But now, he says, the tables have turned. This scatterer who has come up against you is going to plunder all your silver.
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  plunder all your gold. The plunderer is going to be plundered. All of your vaults, he says, are pillaged. All of the banks are raided and every ounce of gold and silver down to the last coin is hauled off by the enemy, right? And so we see, it's amazing, this prophetic foretelling of Nineveh's destruction in the breaching of the walls, the fall of the palace, the carrying off of false gods.
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  the scattering of the people, and then the plundering of the city. We see it's prophetic foretelling, and history says that that is how it went. The destroyer was destroyed. And so Nahum concludes with verses 10 to 13, in which this fallen city is forgotten. Look at verse 10. Desolate, desolation and ruin.
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  hearts melt and knees tremble, anguish is in all loins, all faces grow pale. Nahum says that all that is left for the defeated Ninevites is to look on the desolation of their city in horror. Now imagine with me for a moment that after church today, we all go out for lunch and all of our phones start getting emergency notifications saying that Los Angeles, San Francisco,
• 23:09
  Chicago, Houston, New York, and Washington, D.C. were all nuked. What would your reaction be? My guess, stunned silence, breathlessness, maybe fear. Like all the biggest cities in our nation, gone. We would be looking at our phones or watching the news with mouths open. That.
• 23:57
  is what the Ninevites felt as they saw their capital city, the seat of the nation's power, ruined. The Hebrew alliteration in this verse is very interesting, and see if you can hear this. Where we read desolate, desolation, and ruin, the Hebrew reads buka, mebuka, mebulaka, right? You can hear that alliteration. It's like Nahum is saying desolation, decimation, devastation.
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  upon this wicked city. And the prophet continues in verses 11 to 13 by describing Assyria as a lion whose den and whose prey have been completely taken away. Look at verse 11 with me. It says,
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  And then verse 13, I will cut off your prey from the earth and the voice of your messengers shall no longer be heard.
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  In the nation of Assyria, the lion was the national emblem. And so if you think, like in America, we use the bald eagle as our national symbol to symbolize freedom. In Assyria, it would have been the lion to symbolize their power and their dominance. One scholar writes that violence was so normalized in the nation of Assyria.
• 25:33
  that the army, these are his words, would brag of driving children and women from their dead fathers and husbands into slavery. They feasted on cruelty. Their brutality was unmatched in the ancient world. And whoever they wanted to carry off and attack like human prey, they would. Nahum compares them to a lion that would hunt not only enough for itself, but for everyone back at the den.
• 26:02
  However, now that Yahweh has brought them down, they're like homeless lions with no prey. They're messengers, right, which at one time could strike fear into a town just by entering the town's walls. He says, you're going to be heard no more. Your power is broken, your cruelty has come to an end, and you, fallen Nineveh, are forgotten.
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  And so Nahum, in this prophecy, he warns the oppressor, he encourages the oppressed. He says the destroyer is going to be destroyed and the fallen is going to be forgotten. And so we need to ask, why should Nahum 2 matter? You're like, did I really come to church for a history lesson today? No, this, it really, really matters, right? What's with all the imagery and warfare and history?
• 26:52
  There are three major theological principles in this passage that have everything to do with your life and with mine. The first is that God is sovereign over human history and is actively involved in it. God is not the deistic God who winds up the earth or the universe like a clock and then sets it down to run and backs away and has nothing to do with it. That is not the God.
• 27:22
  that we serve the biblical portrait of god's sovereignty is that he often uses natural means to accomplish his divine purposes he actually orchestrates the events of history to bring about his will it's not always a supernatural event like sodom and gomorrah where fire and sulfur supernaturally rained down from heaven on that city it's not always like that a lot of times like in the book of judges and the prophetic writings
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  God uses natural means like armies to exact his judgment. And again, Nahum is a great example of this truth. This book was written in 615 BC, but Nineveh fell three years after this was spoken in 612 BC. And the specificity of the prophecy was fulfilled in real-time space history. That's amazing. Verse 13 contains this phrase. In fact, look again with me at verse 13.
• 28:22
  Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts. It's repeated again in chapter 3 verse 5. Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts. This tells us something important that we cannot miss when it comes to the book of Nahum, and it's this. The prophet Nahum is not interested in attributing the fall of Nineveh to anybody else except God. Now, historically, was it Babylon and the Medes who attacked?
• 28:53
  Nineveh? Yes. But in Nahum's mind, Babylon and the Medes are merely God's instrument of judgment. And I think where a lot of skeptical, unbelieving people would say, well, Nahum was just written later and then they wrote God back into history. There's no scholarly ground for that. This was actually prophetic. And it's something that skeptical people have to deal with when they come, especially to the prophets. God foretold it and it happened as he foretold it.
• 29:24
  So Nahum says God is actually the one who brought down the city because he is sovereign. He's the one who orchestrated these events to happen the way that they did. It shows that God's word is unstoppable. That God's will cannot be thwarted or hindered. Psalm 115.
• 29:45
  We know at least verse one of this, but I'm going to read verses one to three. It says this, not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Why should the nation say, where is their God? Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. In Daniel chapter four, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, right? The nation who would usurp Assyria as the world power.
• 30:12
  After he is humbled by God and then raised back up, he prays this, God's dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? Our God is sovereign.
• 30:41
  He does what he pleases. And so out of that big God principle, right? God is sovereign. The next two principles flow. The second one, second principle is that God's judgment of the wicked is guaranteed. His judgment of the wicked is guaranteed. Psalm 34 verse 16 says, the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of them from the earth. Psalm 11 verse 5 says, the Lord tests the righteous.
• 31:11
  but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Now, as we learned last week, God is the perfect judge who judges in righteousness, and he has promised that at the end of all things, at the end of all things, the chance to repent will be over. The door of God's grace will shut, and God will judge the living and the dead. And on that day, those who have stubbornly refused God or trusted in their own self,
• 31:42
  so-called righteousness, or those who have walked in arrogance, will stand in pale-faced, fearful awe before him. Psalm 68, verse 1 to 3, paints this picture of that final day, and it is sobering. Psalm 68, God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered, and those who hate him shall flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away.
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  Highland God has sovereignly decreed that this day of judgment will come. But the good news is that today the doors of his grace are still open.
• 32:42
  There is a chance to repent today. And so I need to ask you today as we're looking at Nahum and thinking about this final day, do you know Jesus? Have you recognized that there is a God who has created you and that in your heart you have made an exchange? You don't want God, you want his stuff. You want to sit on the throne of your heart. And have you recognized that that is treason against the king of kings?
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  That your sin and my sin is not primarily sin against other people or against ourselves. It is primarily sin against God. Against you and you alone, oh Lord, have I sinned. Have you recognized your need of a Savior and of God's forgiveness? And then have you seen his glorious provision in the Son of God who dies on the cross for you? And then who was raised for your justification that you could be made right with God by trusting in Jesus' sacrifice?
• 33:39
  you believed this? Because if not, it's the most loving thing I could say today, that judgment is coming. But you can change that today. God's grace is available to you today. Have you believed the gospel? In the end, we will all stand before Jesus, who says in John chapter 5 that he has received all authority from the Father to judge.
• 34:11
  He will be the one before whom we will stand. And he is the one in Revelation chapter 5 who is called the Lion of Judah. The Lion. We just talked about lions, right? Jesus is the one who has all power, dominance, and authority. Assyria wasn't the lion. They don't have ultimate power. America's not the lion. No country in Africa or Europe or the Middle East or Asia, none of those countries are the lion. There is one lion and his name is Jesus.
• 34:40
  Man, can I get a witness somewhere in here? There is one lion, his name is Jesus, and he will return on the clouds and every eye will see him and give an account to him and how joyful it will be for the redeemed people of God who with no shame welcome his return because all of the judgment that was on us fell on Christ and he took it. And so because God is sovereign,
• 35:12
  He has decreed that this final day of judgment is going to come. But then there's also more good news for us, and this is the third principle, and we'll end with this this morning. Hope for God's people is assured. In Nahum 2, verse 2, Nahum spoke this word of encouragement to the people of God, right, with promises of restoration, and I want to encourage you with the same thing this morning.
• 35:42
  One day God will make all things right. Every injustice will cease. Every war will come to an end. And we will get to live with God forever. And this hope doesn't just apply to some distant future day, but it should empower us now to be a people, a community of hope. We're an outpost of the kingdom of God. We should be filled with hope.
• 36:10
  And just like Nahum says to the people of God in verse 2, that even though you've been judged and exiled by Assyria, your failure is not the final word. That is true for you and for me today as well. Your failures, your struggles, your temptations, the things that you thought you would overcome that you haven't yet overcome, none of those things have the final word in your life. God's faithfulness has the final word. He will renew you day by day, the word says.
• 36:41
  He is unbelievably faithful. He's always ready to restore and to forgive and to lift us up, right? So my encouragement to you is going to be this. As our country and our world gets crazier and crazier, don't let your gaze start falling from God to where all you can see is the mess that's happening down here. God is so good at just coming over to us and lifting up our chins and saying, no, look up.
• 37:12
  Look up. Look at what I'm doing. This is not the end. I am here and I am working. So take hope. Highland, though all hell stand against you, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And so trust in the sovereignty of God that one day all wickedness will be so far gone.
• 37:42
  And we will look in triumph and victory as the lamb who was slain for our sins comes on the clouds and as the lion of Judah roars and makes all things right. That will be a good day, yeah? Amen. All right, let's pray. We're going to sing once more before we close. Jesus, our great king, the lion of Judah, the one with power.
• 38:14
  and strength, but also the gracious King. Lord, we do pray to you today and thank you that there's so much from Nahum chapter 2 that you have worked judgment and victory in the past and that you will work it again in the future. Until then, help us, Lord, to be a people of hope who love Jesus, who adore him.
• 38:45
  who sing his praises, and let us be a people who testify of your character and your faithfulness to the world around us. You are worthy of the praise. Be glorified now as we sing. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.