Handling Mayhem

My name is René, I'm one of the pastors here and I don't know about you but it seems to me like every other TV commercial that I see is about an insurance company, right? I mean they become part of our national almost cast of characters. You've got the Geico Gecko, right? You've got Flo who is like on every other commercial spot but there's one insurance company ad campaign that has won more awards, advertising agency awards, than any other and it involves a person who calls himself mayhem and mayhem is in a variety of circumstances.

Well in case you don't know what I'm talking about here's just one example. Watch the screen. I'm a raccoon and this time in your attic has been the best week of my raccoon life. I'm digging, I'm nesting in this fluffy stuff. I've already had like four babies. I'm the smartest raccoon I know. And if you got your home insurance where you got your cut rate car insurance you could be paying for this yourself. Get Allstate, you could save money and be better protected from mayhem like me. Mayhem is everywhere. So get an Allstate agent. Are you in good hands? How many of you ever seen one of those mayhem commercials, right? They're all over the place.

Now I want to make a couple of things clear. First, Allstate did not sponsor this sermon today. We're not being sponsored by insurance companies but secondly those commercials really strike a chord with us because it's true, right? We have all experienced mayhem in life that hits us unexpectedly, seemingly out of the blue. Whether suddenly you're stuck in a traffic jam when you're late or whether it's something more serious. You get a dreaded phone call from the doctor or you're in some kind of a relationship or a financial problem. Mayhem really is a part of life and while it's funny in commercials it's not usually that funny in real life, is it?

In fact one of the questions a lot of people ask me as a pastor can be boiled down to a very simple sentence. How do I handle the mayhem of life? The disease, the accident, the loss that hits me out of the blue. Well the good news is that is exactly the question that is answered by the part of the Bible that we look at today. Grab your message notes that look like this. They're in the middle of the bulletins that you got when you came in. By the way the reason we have message notes is not because we think that you don't know how to take notes or don't know how to listen or something, but we try to pack the 30-minute or so Bible lesson each weekend with just as much usable data as we can.

We even put daily meditations that have to do with that week's message and so we want this to be a take-home for you so you don't just come for 30 minutes and then it leaves your brain and evaporates. We want you to be able to really apply this to your life. We are in a series that we call Rev. Everybody say that with me out loud. Say Rev. Rev. And we call it that because it's our study in the very last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation.

Revelation was written 2,000 years ago by the Apostle John when he has a series of very strange visions and he writes them down in a letter and he sends them to encourage the very first generation of Christians who really were experiencing a lot of mayhem. They were being thrown to the lions by the Romans, burned at the stake, beheaded, forced from their homes, persecuted in every way imaginable. Now what John wrote them in the book of Revelation must have encouraged them because they not only survived all of this, they thrived and so I think it just might have something powerful to say to you and me too about how to survive really tough times.

But here's the thing, the way the book of Revelation encourages these suffering Christians is very surprising because it does not say, like a motivational speaker today might say, "Life is totally beautiful! Just think positive!" And if you have negative things in your life it's because you've allowed the universe to bring them into your life. There is no such thing as mayhem. Speak against the mayhem. The book of Revelation actually doesn't say that because these very early Christians would know that's a lie because we're just being hammered here.

Those early Christians would know that the book of Revelation speaks the truth when it says we are in a battle, a battle with beasts. But there is also beauty. At the center of all reality there is God and he loves you and he promises that the mayhem will one day stop. And if you listen, when you worship, you can hear the song of all of creation praising him. That's the picture of reality the book of Revelation paints.

And before we dig into Revelation chapter 6 and 7 where we're going to go this morning, I want to go to a verse where Jesus Christ sort of summarizes the whole book of Revelation. It's in John 16:33. We're going to put it on screen and it's also the verse at the very top of your notes. So let's read this out loud together. Ready? Here we go. Jesus said, "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble but take heart I have overcome the world."

Now there's two words in this verse that are really important to the book of Revelation. First the word trouble. If you have a pencil or a pen, circle that in the notes or in your Bible and write this down, this can also be translated tribulation. And the word tribulation is a word that appears over and over in Revelation. And Jesus says, "You will have it." Not a group of poor, pathetic Christians at the end of all history will have it. You will have it. You. And this is super important to recognize because a lot of people think being a Christian means that my life should be pleasant and smooth and trouble-free.

Especially if I'm doing my best to be faithful and obedient to God, I should live a long life and my finances should thrive and I should sleep peacefully every night and I should have a thick lustrous head of hair until I'm at least 80 years old or so and my boss should notice how hard I try at work and he should be looking for ways to promote me because God's gonna work in his heart to do that because I follow God and my children should be so delighted that they have a devout parent that they are seeking chores to do at the house to show their gratitude, right? Yeah, to everybody tempted to think like that, Jesus has a word for you. Trouble. Tribulation. Mayhem.

You know, there's another verse, Matthew 6:34 related to this. I always thought was kind of funny. Look at this. Jesus said, "Don't worry about tomorrow." Why not? Because it's all gonna be okay? No? "Don't worry about tomorrow for what?" "Tomorrow will bring worries enough of its own." "Today's trouble's enough for today." Thank you, Jesus, you know? I was thinking about it. It's as if Jesus sang it instead of Bobby McFerrin. That song would be, "Don't worry." It gets worse. Thank you, Jesus, so much. Aren't you glad he came to church today? Isn't that inspiring, right?

But that's only half the story because sometimes people can think when we get into difficulty, "Oh, that's it. God's abandoned me. I must have done something wrong because I'm going through something tough. He's abandoned me." But Jesus says, "No, in this world you will have trouble, but take what? Take heart. I have overcome the world." Now circle, this is the second word, overcome, the second important word for understanding the book of Revelation because it appears there over and over and over and over again, too. This comes from the Greek word Nike, which in those days stood for a new brand of athletic sandals. No, it did not stand for that. It stood for the Greek goddess of victory.

In every ancient city in the Roman Empire, you see statues of Nike presenting the champions of sporting events with prizes. And in this case, it's a palm branch that was like holding up a trophy. The palm branch was a symbol of victory. What Jesus is saying here is, "I have won the race and I have won. I broke the tape and you're gonna do it, too." Not just because of my example, but because I will give you the grace, the power to do it. So this is the pattern, this is the template for how to understand trouble for believers. Not, "Now that I'm a Christian, I'm not gonna have any trouble." No. In this world, you will have tribulation. But don't be in despair, don't be in denial. Instead, be determined. For Jesus has triumphed.

And we're gonna look at two chapters in Revelation today that are very complex. There's a lot of disagreement among Christians over their interpretation. We're gonna talk about the four horsemen of the apocalypse and about beasts and about the 144,000 and all these weird visions. And I just gotta say, if you disagree with me, I'd love to hear about it. Just email me at paul@tlc.org. Just jot that down. So it's kind of a complicated passage of the Bible. But one central truth is very clear. The big idea that this is teaching is, "There will be trouble, but take heart. The Lamb has overcome and His people have overcome." And I think if we keep that in mind, we're gonna not lose the forest for the trees here.

Again, we're in Revelation 6 and 7. This part is sometimes called, "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." And this is a freaky part of the Bible. I'm just gonna warn you about that. This is weird. And it starts with a list of all the kinds of mayhem that happened to us, and it personifies the normal mayhem of life as these four horsemen. All right? John has a vision, and he says, "I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. And then I heard one of the four living creatures say, in a voice like thunder, come. And I looked, and there before me was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest."

All right, now stop there for just a second. Because these days, the image of a white horse does not exactly conjure feelings of fear, does it? A white horse? That's like Disney princesses and the Lipizaner stallions and My Little Pony, you know, that does not make us frightened. But in those days, this would have reminded readers of the horsemen of the Parthian Empire. On the eastern border of Rome was what we now call Iran or Persia, and they kept defeating every attempt by Rome to make incursions into their territory and conquer them. How? The Parthians always fought on horses.

This is a carving of a Parthian on a horse. They had well-trained cavalry, and there was nothing anybody could do to stop them. Actually, they were never conquered, not even by the Roman armies. In fact, this is a famous massive carving in Iran. You can see it today. It's of the Roman Caesar Valerius bowing down before one of the Parthian horsemen. So when these verses talk about horsemen, it was like, "Bruh, horsemen. They're scary. They're invincible. There's nothing you can do about the horsemen." And they each represent another kind of human mayhem. The first one is talking about war, that human trait to always want to conquer, to invade, to expand empires, which brings so much grief.

And then comes the next horseman. "When the lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature cry, 'Come!' And then another horse came out, a fiery red one. And its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to watch this make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword." And this one represents violence that is apart from war, like drive-by shootings and terrorism and abuse. And the weird kind of stuff that happened in Kalamazoo, you know, yesterday, this strange insanity that grips men's minds where they've got to do violence.

And then look at the next verse. "When the lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come!' And I looked and there before me was a black horse, and its rider was holding a pair of scales." Like balance scales? Like, okay, the first one had a bow, the second one had a sword, and this one has a scale. You know, why is this scary? Well, watch this. "Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures saying, 'A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine.'" In other words, you have such a high rate of inflation that it takes you all day long to work for a loaf of bread.

What this is talking about is economic hardship, stock markets crashing, price gouging, inflation. And this is another kind of mayhem. It may not be as violent, but this also does damage to so many people. And then verse 7, "When the lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, 'Come!' And I looked and there before me was a pale horse, and its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. And they were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword and famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." This fourth horse really represents everything else, right?

You already had war, you already had violence, you already had economic collapse, and now here comes sort of like everything else, famine, plague, wild animals, I call it disease, etc. And when it says, "Hades was following close behind," Hades here is not hell, this is Hades in the Greek sense of just death. Do you see this? In other words, watch this now, look at this, "If war and violence and poverty and famine and plague and wild beasts don't get you, you're still gonna die. Hades is following close behind, nobody gets out of here alive." And what this is saying is, history is a record of these four horsemen.

Now let me just stop and say, this is not just a prediction of the future, this is human history, right? That's the point of this passage. Jesus talked about this in Matthew 24, he said in this order, he said, "You're going to hear wars and rumors of wars, and nation will come against nation, there'll be earthquakes, but this is not the end yet, this is just the way it is, this is the life we live on this planet." These four horsemen still ride today. The horsemen of war is riding today in places like the Middle East. The horsemen of violence rides today in in places like Salinas, where a teenager was killed in a drive-by shooting.

The economic disaster horsemen is riding today on Wall Street, where almost inexplicable panic will sometimes take over the market and turn it into a bear market, and people lose retirement savings and so on. The horsemen of disease suddenly will ride through Brazil with that terrible mosquito-borne virus right now. And so these four horsemen ride today, and here's what's going on, they seem to be riding roughshod over God's beloved people.

Look at verse 9, "And when he opened the fifth seal," John says, "I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain," because of what? The Word of God and the testimony they had maintained. And this fifth seal represents religious persecution. Religious persecution. Now this was happening big time, of course, in those days, we've already talked about that, but it's happening today too. Did you know that experts say in the last 100 years more people have been put to death for their Christian faith than in the previous 1900 years combined?

I mean what's going on is a real tragedy today, and not just in the Middle East, that's sort of getting a little bit of press, but in so many places I went as part of a mission trip to Guatemala, and a missionary we support there took me just crashing through the jungle in a four-wheel drive to a very remote village to meet the pastor of a church there, and when I went into his office I noticed there were there was a crooked line of bullet holes in the plaster on the wall just behind his desk, and I said, "What in the world is that?" He goes, "Oh, those are the bullet holes from machine gun fire." I said, "Why is there machine gun fire on your office wall?" And he said, "Oh, that's where my predecessor was killed last year." I said, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, we just haven't plastered it over yet. There's too much other stuff to do." He goes, "Anyway, tell me about your trouble with the water board." I'm like, "Forget about it."

But here's the big question, how are Christians supposed to deal with all this, right? Well, we're getting to that now because look what happens next, and this may totally surprise you. This may blow your idea of what it means to be a good Christian out of the water. In fact, some of you never thought you'd see something like this in the Bible because here's these people who were killed for their faith, they were suffering, and now they're in heaven, they're with God, and it says, "They called out in a loud voice, 'How long, sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?'"

You know one huge takeaway from this for me? It's okay to say, "God, I do not like what is happening in my life right now." It's okay to say, "This is horrific." It's okay when you're suffering or a loved one is suffering or when you look at the news headlines to say, "This stinks! This is not fair! God, are you kidding me?" You don't have to live in denial. You don't have to go, "I'm good, I'm good. Everything happens for a reason, man. I'm good, I'm good," because that is actually not what these people are thinking, and they're in heaven.

Even saints in heaven look down on the mess here on earth sometimes and go, "God, this is not right." And now what does that tell you if people in heaven are doing it? That means it's not wrong. In fact, I would say that means it is a sign of perfect maturity to cry out to God like this, because that longing for justice that God placed there is God honoring to claim, right? It is God honoring to not want one more child dead of malnutrition and not want one more soldier dead in war and not want one more Christian killed for their faith. That is a godly longing. It's not being a doubter. It's not being an unbeliever. It's not being weak in faith to say, "I really do not like what is happening here on earth sometimes," because look what happens.

God does not go, "Oh, thou complainers, thou art bounced," and hits the eject button, right? No. But what does he do for them? Next verse, "How long they cry out, and then each of them was given a full explanation of why all this made sense in God's plan and how he was going to work out every detail for good." No. A white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer. So I get beheaded and I get a bathrobe? What is this all about, right? Well, white robes were often worn in the Roman Empire as a sign of victory. Do you get that? A sign of victory.

Is clothing ever a sign of victory these days? Of course it is. You know how Super Bowl champs have caps printed with their team logo? World Series champs? Super Bowl champs printed on them? And how they put them on right after the game and they've got champagne on ice ready to celebrate with? Well, what this is a picture of, this is God handing out the world champion hats before the game is over. This is God handing out the champagne glasses and saying, "Get ready for the victory toast. It's not gonna be long now." Only when he hands out the hats, it's a guarantee. He's kind of saying, "I know, I know, but hang on. This is this is gonna be good. Check it out. Watch this, because we win, you know. It will not go on forever. Just wait a little while longer. Wait a little while longer." Say that out loud with me. "Wait a little while longer." I want you to turn to somebody, look them in the eye, and say, "Wait a little while longer. Wait a little while longer." Somebody needed to hear that today. It's not gonna go on forever.

And you know, listen, listen. I think you and I experience this same moment. It's funny, I think I cried more about my mom's Alzheimer's before she died than after she died. About a year before she passed away, I remember going out on the balcony of our house. She was living with us. We were taking care of her. And I just was weeping and weeping and stood on my balcony, just sort of hammered on the rails and said, "It is not fair. It's not fair. This woman has suffered so much. She's so good. And it's not fair." And I just just let it out to God. And within a few moments, it's funny, I felt a blanket, sort of like a piece that passes all understanding. Not an explanation, but just a piece.

And I think that was God kind of putting the white robe on me and saying, "I know, but just wait a little longer because there's some problems we have in this life that will not see their resolution until the new heaven and the new earth. And from God's perspective, that's a little while." You know, I got to show you a powerful testimony. I saw Trent Dilfer share his story. Trent's family comes to church here. Trent is a media figure, a celebrity. He's a Super Bowl winning quarterback. You see him every week on ESPN as one of their commentators. But he has some profound things to say about this topic in this video.

In 2003, my son Trevin was five and a half at the time. We were at Disneyland for a family vacation. And we went down to Disneyland doing the Disneyland thing, and he gets a cold. You have four kids. Kids get sick. It's never fun, but you kind of develop a rhythm for when they're gonna bounce back. And he wasn't bouncing back. Even on the ride home, you know, we couldn't cheer him up. He got real listless, real, like had no energy, and his skin color was different. So we take him to the emergency room, and they weren't real worried. They did some blood work, and they gave him a bunch of fluids, and you know, said he was dehydrated. And maybe they were gonna look at him overnight, because there are some possible signs in the blood work of some hepatitis possibilities. And it was like one of those, "Okay, everything's fine." I mean, nobody was panicked. So I was to go home and be with the other three girls. I mean, I'm not home for five minutes. I get this call that, "Hey, on the way to the hospital, your son's heart stopped."

I run in, and the first thing I remember seeing is a team of doctors all hovering over my son and, you know, trying to resuscitate him. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Rushsel said, "Oh, great news. We had one nurse that was able to keep his heart pumping enough for us to put this ECMO unit on him, which is a heart-long bypass machine." And he was on this machine for 40 days at Stanford. One of the most defining moments of my life is when we found out that we had to take Trevyn off life support. We were staying in this little back room, these cots at Lucille Packard. We went back there, we prayed together, and she goes, "Can you leave me alone for a little bit?" I said, "Sure." And I walked out. I'd never heard a scream of more pain than I heard from her. It was like through two walls into another room, and she was crying out to God.

I was so amazed that she had the maturity to be willing to scream out to God. It's horrific, and I'm not here to say it's not, but what's equally awesome is that we have a God that volunteered that for His Son on our behalf. I mean, people say, "Why would you believe in this Jesus?" I come on, and the cynics, I get it, and I simply say, "You have no idea. I've experienced a peace during the greatest time of loss any parent could ever have that is so real." I mean, truly, I feel like it washes over me at times. That is a video of what we've been talking about. Somebody crying out to God, but then receiving a peace that passes understanding, and told, "Just wait a while longer."

Again, some things we go through here get resolved here on earth, but some things won't be resolved until God's final judgment and His restoration of the new heavens and the new earth. And that's what comes next. The sixth seal is God's judgment. John says, "I watched as He opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake, and the sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair. The whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth as figs dropped from a tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place." Now, what's happening here? Again, remember, this is all symbolic.

There were an actual horseman riding around, bringing death and so on. That was a symbol of the mayhem that's a part of life. And this is symbolic too. This is not saying actual stars will crash into earth. You know, if Alpha Centauri crashed into the earth, we would vaporize. Stars falling down is a picture of the world order being turned upside down. Remember how the Romans said that their emperors controlled the seven stars, the seven planets. Here's that ancient coin we showed you before with the sun of Emperor Domitian juggling the seven stars and ruling over the earth saying the Caesars control the heavens. And what this verse is saying is there will come a time when it will be clear that Caesar does not, in fact, run the universe.

This means there's a reordering of the world. "Then the kings of the earth," in verse 15, "the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hidden caves, and among the rocks of the mountains." In other words, this is Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Nero and every other evil dictator and every other human coming before the judge. And their sentence is being pronounced. And now look at the question these people ask, "For the great day of their wrath has come." And who can stand talking about the Lord God, you know, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Great question. Who can stand? Who can stand? Who can stand through all the regular mayhem of life, but especially who can stand through the judgment of God?

What's happening is they're experiencing the same thing that John felt back in chapter 4 where he's suddenly face to face with God. And he says he wept and wept because he was not worthy. Who can stand before a holy God? Well, we find out in chapter 7. Look at verse 4. Now this is going to take some thinking. Stay with me here for two minutes. "Then I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel." And he goes on to say there were 12,000 from each tribe. Now, there's many, many different theories about this number, the 144,000. Would you like to know what I think? Do you want to know? Sort of? Well, here it is. I don't know. Turn to somebody, look him in the eye and say, "He doesn't know. He doesn't know." I don't know. And you know what? Neither do you. Neither does anybody else.

But here's my best guess just for what it's worth and Christians can disagree on this one too. And it's kind of deep and it involves numbers. Yes. And many of you are very math-phobic like I am and you start to hear numbers and it sounds like a word problem and your eyes just kind of immediately glaze over. So hang with me here for just a minute. I think this is symbolic. I think it's unlikely that John is saying exactly the same number of people, 12,000 exactly, are going to be saved from every one of the 12 tribes of Israel. And there's going to be exactly 144,000 Jewish people in heaven, period, than the door will shut. Why would he be saying that? For one thing, by the time this was written, Jewish tribal identities don't even exist anymore. Only two tribes were still identified.

So most people weren't even sure what tribe they were from. So what could this mean? Well, again, in Revelation, numbers are always symbolic. And the number 12 was always associated with the people of God, the 12 patriarchs, the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 apostles, the 12 gates into the new Jerusalem for God's people. And this is 12 times 12,000. And so this number signifies all the people of God. Not one of them is missing. A top Bible scholar named Bruce Metzger puts it like this. The explicit number, 144,000, is John's way of symbolizing the completeness of all the people of God. Not one of the redeemed is missing. Not one. Why not? Because it says they were sealed.

And again, what does that mean? These days we think of plastic wrap. They were sealed, you know, in plastic wrap. No, in those days a king would use his signet ring, like this one, to kind of put his stamp on an official document or royal property. It was his way of saying, "This is royal property. Don't touch this." And so this is a way of saying God is in charge of his people and no one is going to be lost. Not a single one. God's saying, "Every one of my children is precious to me." Now, there's a second reason I think this number is symbolic. And watch this. It says, John says, "I heard the number was 144,000." And then he turns and looks and sees what the angel is referring to. And he sees a great multitude that no one could count. From every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

This is the same group as before. Only now they're without number. So the 144,000 is a symbolic number, meaning they're all here. And then John turns and looks at them and actually they're in the billions. You can't even count how many were sealed by God, sealed by his grace. And check this out. It says they were wearing white robes. They still have those white robes. And now it's time for the victory party. And they were holding palm branches in their hands. Again, remember how athletic champions got palm branches from Nike. So this is the victory party. And as so many things do in Revelation, this is double symbolism. It meant something to the pagans and the Jews.

Remember on Palm Sunday when Jesus comes in and he's hailed as the Messiah. And what are the people waving? Palm branches. It's like God is saying here in heaven, the first time they hailed him as a king, but it was time for him to be the sacrificial lamb. But the Messiah is returning and this time he truly does come as the king of kings. In other words, God wins. Here's the point. In this life you will have trouble. But don't give up. Don't give in. God's got you. That's what sealed means. Don't give up. God's got you. Say that with me. Don't give up. God's got you. Say it again. Don't give up. God's got you.

Four practical takeaways for me from these chapters. First, expect trouble. The Bible never says we are immune. You expect it. It happens. Second, I need to express my hurts to God. If even the saints in heaven say, you know, God, I don't like what's happening right now, then you can too. It's a sign of maturity. Third, exalt God for my salvation. Even in the midst of the worst trouble. You can say, but God saved my soul. Because that's always true and that's the best thing that ever happened to you. And it's always true even in your worst times of trouble. And fourth, I need to expand my view of heaven. Because a healthy view of heaven keeps you going down here on earth.

So let me say this. I wonder what you're going through today. I wonder if maybe your heart's aching because you're alone. Or maybe you're estranged from one of your children. I wonder if you're dealing with bad news from your doctor. I wonder if you're in desperate financial need. That third horseman has been riding through your life lately. Or I wonder if you've got a problem and you can't see the solution. Or maybe you're in enormous pain. Well if that's you, I want you to just listen. Let this roll over you. The final promise here in verse 15. "He who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence." Never again will they hunger. Never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them. Nor any scorching heat for the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. Interesting play on words. The lamb is now the shepherd. He will bring them the springs of living water. And God will take his hand and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

In other words, mayhem happens. But you're in good hands with the Father. Amen? Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me? You know, with our heads bowed and no one looking around right now, I just want to pray for you if you're going through a real tough time right now. So here's what I'm going to ask you to do. Just slip up your hand just quietly. If you're going through some kind of trouble in life, you came to church trouble, that you'd like me to pray for right now, just slip that hand up. And let me see, hands going up all over the room, some double hands. Lord, you see these hands. Put the white robe on the shoulders of these dear people. Give them the strength to wait a little while longer.

Lord, shelter them with your presence. I thank you that you don't make us live in some kind of sick denial or despair, but you give us reasons to be determined. In this world, we're going to have trouble. Way it is. We live in a fallen world. You haven't restored it yet. But we can take heart because you've overcome, and so will we. And God, I just want to pray that if any want to, for the first time, bring their lives to you right now, that they'd say, "Lord, I know I cannot stand in your holy presence unless it's by your grace, unless you seal me." And so I just receive that now. God, print your name on my soul. I receive the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and we pray this in the name of the Lamb of God, Jesus. Amen.