 We come tonight to Judges Chapter 12. So if you will, please turn with me in your Bibles to Judges Chapter 12. And tonight we conclude the account of Jephthah, the judge. From Judges Chapter 12, we'll be moving on to Samson and Judges Chapter 13 next week, Lord willing. The title of our sermon this evening is Pride Goes Before a Fall. Pride Goes Before a Fall, our text, Judges Chapter 12. The entire chapter from verse one to verse 15. Here's a word of God. Then the men of Ephraim gathered together, crossed over towards Zaphon and said to Jephthah, why did you cross over to fight against the people of Ammon and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you with fire. And Jephthah said to them, my people and I were in a great struggle with the people of Ammon. And when I called you, you did not deliver me out of their hands. So when I saw that you would not deliver me, I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the people of Ammon and the Lord delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me? Now, Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. And the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim because they said you Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites. The Gileadites seized the Fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites arrived. And when any Ephraimite who escaped said, let me cross over, the men of Gilead would say to him, are you an Ephraimite? If he said no, they would say to him, then say Shibboleth. And he would say Sibboleth for he could not pronounce it right. And then they would take him and kill him at the Fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time 42,000 Ephraimites. And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried among the cities of Gilead. After him, Ibn Zahn of Bethlehem judged Israel. He had 30 sons and he gave away 30 daughters in marriage and brought in 30 daughters from elsewhere for his sons. He judged Israel seven years. Then Ibn Zahn died and was buried at Bethlehem. After him, Elon the Zebulonite judged Israel. He judged Israel 10 years. And Elon the Zebulonite died and was buried at Ijalan in the country of Zebulon. And after him, Abdon the son of Hillel, the Pyrethonite judged Israel. He had 40 sons and 30 grandsons and he rode on 70 young donkeys. He judged Israel eight years. Then Abdon the son of Hillel, the Pyrethonite died and was buried in Pyrethon in the land of Ephraim in the mountains of the Amalekites. This is the word of God, amen. Amen, let's pray together. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Lord, thank you for the continued lessons that you've blessed us with from this text, this book of Judges over the many weeks that we've been studying it together and we're grateful to you Lord for the admonition, the instruction, the correction, the rebuke, the encouragement that you are so faithful to give us from your word and particularly Lord here in Judges as we go through this book together verse by verse. And I pray tonight for your continued help and blessing on our time together in your word. Spirit of God, we need you. We need your illuminating help, your understanding. God, please help us to heed your word. And help us to learn, grow us in maturity, bolster and cultivate our faith in you as you're so faithful to do. And we ask all these things in Christ's name, amen. Pride goes before a fall, Judges chapter 12. As we return this evening to the book of Judges, we come to the end of an era. This is the end of the tenure of Jephtha as judge. It's an ignominious end to be sure. And in many ways we can see how Jephtha represents the spiritual, the moral, the ethical, low watermark to this point in the record of the judges. The nation, and Jephtha seems to be a microcosm of the nation, the nation has been in spiritual decline from the beginning of the period. Due to their faithlessness, due to their disobedience, the inheritance generation that had come into the land had failed to drive out the Canaanites. They had failed to put those nations, the Canaanite nations among them under the ban, had failed to destroy those nations, had failed to drive out those peoples. And so in judgment, the Lord had declared way back in chapter two, that he would not drive them out from before Israel, that those nations would be thorns in their side, he said, and their gods shall be a snare to you. And we see God's word come to fruition in the chapters that follow. The lesson is painfully obvious from the Book of Judges. Half-hearted obedience or partial obedience or delayed obedience is entire disobedience. The people of Israel have failed to obey the Lord their God. And it's not just a physical failure to drive the people out of the land. It's not just a moral failure, it's a spiritual failure. And their repentance, if there's going to be repentance, their repentance must be thorough and thoroughgoing, but it's something that we simply don't see on the pages of this book. They come back crying crocodile tears to God when they need God, when they need deliverance, when they want respite from their misery, from their woe, and God is faithful and just to his word. He's full of compassion, abounding in mercy, rich in grace, and so he delivers them, and then when they get what they need, they'll go back to whoring after their other lovers, their pagan idols, and they forget the Lord their God again and the pattern repeats. But since that tragic opening at the beginning of the book, after so much hope, after so much promise under the conquest of Joshua, the nation has continued to experience a steady and perilous and tragic spiritual decline. It just keeps getting worse and worse and worse as the book progresses. The physical circumstances that we see in the record, circumstances of misery and oppression and despair and need and want and woe directly mirror the spiritual condition of the people under the judgment of God. Their physical circumstances mirror their spiritual condition. That's what we're to see from the text. During times of peace, they consider themselves to be rich and wealthy, as John might say, in need of nothing. So they don't seek the Lord, they forget the Lord. They don't even want to retain the Lord in their knowledge and their thinking. They forget all that he's done for Israel. They forget their need. They don't have a sense of their need and they do not know, they do not see, they do not perceive that they are spiritually wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Their idolatry becomes more and more profound. Their apostasy, more and more pronounced. They become even worse, if you can imagine it, than the pagan nations that surround them. They become more and more brazen in their rejection of God. And when there is no king in Israel, everybody does what is right in his own eyes. And their utter ingratitude reaches altogether new heights of deplorable. It's in this condition that the desperate people, the despairing people of Gilead, go looking for a leader to rule over them when the people of Ammon come knocking at the front door. They don't seek the Lord in this circumstance. They don't wait on the Lord. They don't even want to remember the Lord. They don't want to go to the Lord. They don't even acknowledge the Lord in their thoughts about the matter. He is relegated, so to speak, to a silent observer on the bench, on the sidelines, as it were, and the people of Gilead go crawling back to Jephthah, whom they cast out all those years before. It's a faithless move. And desperate times call for desperate measures. And so people of Gilead go crawling back, eating crow, crawling through broken glass to Jephthah. And that's against this dismal and deplorable downgrade that we see also, the steadfast covenant, faithfulness and mercy of Almighty God. God again and again and again and again, bringing the people into judgment, which is a loving act on the part of God to turn them from their sin and back to him. He chasens those whom he loves, doesn't he? But he upholds his word toward them, simply for the fact that God has decreed to set his love upon this people. He remains unwaveringly true to his word, long suffering and his loving kindness and abounding in mercy. And that depicted most vividly so far in the account of Jephthah. Gilead in the midst of trusting in their own ability to fight the battle, looking to take matters into their own hands, they believe themselves that they've gone after Jephthah and now called Jephthah back to be their leader in command. Commander went all along, God sovereign over these circumstances has decreed to raise Jephthah up himself to be judge and deliverer over his people. God not willing to endure any longer the misery of his people for no other reason, but his compassion, his loving kindness. God raises up Jephthah as judge. Nevertheless, ongoing conflict marks the record of Jephthah, the judge. Think with me for a moment. Remember, the record begins with conflict arising in Jephthah's own family. Jephthah is an outcast. He's the son of a harlot. Jephthah's own brothers essentially disown him, cut him out of the inheritance, drive him out of the family in order for them to take the inheritance for themselves. Jephthah falls into a mercenary life in Tav, the land of good where he does bad and falls in with men who are bad, leading a bunch of morally reprehensible thugs. And then he finds himself in conflict with his own tribe and conflict with the tribe of Gilead. Gilead comes looking for someone to lead them into battle. Jephthah is incredulous. What are you coming to me for considering all that you've done to me in the past? He finds himself in conflict with the king of Ammon and then with the people of Ammon and the people are on the brink of annihilation. Israel is on the brink of annihilation by a foe that they cannot in and of themselves defeat. These are desperate circumstances. Well, God gives them the victory. God delivers Israel. But the account of victory is swallowed up in tragedy as the account ends with a tremendous personal conflict for Jephthah over a rash and foolish vow that results in the sacrifice of his own daughter. You could say on the altar of his own prideful ambition. And the joy that should have surrounded the deliverance of God is halted by the tragic foolishness of the judge himself. We see these judges are imperfect people. They are flawed people. So there is even conflict around the character of Jephthah himself. He's a man of faith. His faith lands him in the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. And yet at the same time, a foolish, prideful, selfishly ambitious brigand. And it just goes to show that the man is never the object of the story. The man is never the important part of the story. What is important? What God does through faith. That's what we're to remember. That's what we're to see. So now as we come to chapter 12, Jephthah finds himself in conflict now with Ephraim. Conflict with his family and conflict with Gilead and conflict with the people of Ammon and conflict with the king of Ammon. Now in conflict with Ephraim, another tribe, but this tribe within Israel herself. And as much as our text ends with a sour note for Jephthah, it ends with a black eye for the nation as well. Jephthah, the product of physical adultery. Well, the problems in Israel are the product of spiritual adultery. And we see further, the canonization of Israel, the canonization or the Canaanite influence upon Jephthah, the canonization of Israel and the further spiritual decline of the people. And their faithlessness, their spiritual decline leads the nation to the brink of a national crisis now in chapter 12 that we're only gonna see worsen to the point of civil war in the chapters that follow. But begin with me now, chapter 12, verse one. So the men of Ephraim gathered together. The men of Ephraim crossed over towards Zaphon and said to Jephthah, why did you cross over to fight against the people of Ammon and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you with fire. That's almost crazy to read those words, but Ephraim is crazy in their pride. After the Lord delivers Israel by the hand of Jephthah and after the Lord gives them, as is described in chapter 11, a great slaughter, a great deliverance, a great victory, Ephraim decides to register a complaint against those who are leading the endeavor. It's amazing, isn't it? Ephraim is hostile. And this isn't the first time they've been antagonists for this very same reason. What is at root in Ephraim's hostility is pride. And we saw it back in chapter eight, didn't we, under Gideon? Remember in chapter eight, verse one, if you turn back just a couple of pages. In chapter eight, verse one, Ephraim had rebuked Gideon for essentially the same thing, didn't they? Chapter eight, verse one, the men of Ephraim said to him, said to Gideon, why have you done this to us by not calling us when you went to fight with the Midianites? And they reprimanded him sharply. The ESV says they accused him fiercely or they contended against him forcefully. It means that the Ephraimites were in a mood and they read Gideon the right act, right? They didn't get invited to the original battle. They didn't get to participate in the original route. They thought they were somebody and they didn't get in on the fight, right? And so they were mad about it. And it was only when Midian was escaping through their territory that Gideon called them in from mop-up operation and they were offended that they were relegated to the mop-up operation. They took it personally and they had been insulted and Ephraim was angry about it. They were angry, they weren't included. Well, what Ephraim did to Gideon back in chapter eight, they do now again to Jephthah in chapter 12 and it gets even worse. As you might expect, considering the spiritual decay, considering the spiritual rot that is set in, their hard, prideful hearts become even more contentious. Now we know that to be true in practical experience, don't we? This may happen in Ephraim, but remember, Ephraim is made up of a bunch of men and their hearts are the hearts that are prideful and spiritually decaying, spiritually rotting. They're hearts are the ones who are contentious, who are stirring up strife. And that happens in our day. We see it just as easily. Proverbs 13 verse 10, pride by pride comes nothing but strife. And we see strife from Ephraim that comes from nothing but their pride. Proverbs 15 verse 18, a wrathful man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger allays contention. Ephraim is wrathful. Proverbs 28 verse 25, he who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will be prospered. You ever noticed that wherever a prideful man or a prideful woman, wherever they go, wherever you see them, strife and contention seem to follow. It's amazing, isn't it? But it sticks to them like glue. Wherever that prideful young man, that prideful young woman, that prideful older woman, older man go, wherever they go, strife and contention follow in their wake. They stir it up. Well, their response to Jephthah after a similar response to Gideon shows us that this prideful and contentious spirit has become characteristic of Ephraim, right? It's a serious character flaw. This becomes a pattern in Ephraim, a pattern in those people that we see now repeated and actually getting worse. And notice in verse one, verse one explains that the men of Ephraim gathered together and crossed over. In other words, that means that Ephraim didn't just come to talk to Jephthah. They gathered their army together. The army of Ephraim was assembled. They're prepared for battle. They're coming over. They're crossing over towards Zaphon to fight. They're gonna pick a battle here with Jephthah. In other words, this is over the top. Over the top, we've been amazed many times over the years at how contentious and how hostile, how strife-filled, prideful men and women have become when they simply will not humble themselves to the word of God and resolve conflict peaceably that it's in their pride that they stir up strife and contention. Here we see it exemplified in the people of Ephraim. To add insult to injury, they threatened to burn down Jephthah's house with him in it. Instead of expressing gratitude to Jephthah, instead of expressing gratitude to the Lord for such a great deliverance, they're gonna burn his house down. They express a jealous and a zealous hostility that is fueled by pride. One commentator refers to their wounded sense of self-importance. If I can't have it my way, I'm gonna hurt you because of it. If I can't get my own way, I'm gonna make sure you pay for it. Now, put yourself in the sandals of Jephthah. Jephthah has just begun to deal with the tragic implications of a foolish vow. Jephthah's a bit of a hothead himself and these wise guys show up. How do you think Jephthah's gonna respond? Well, as he had done before, Jephthah begins by trying to talk himself out of a conflict. Look at verse two. So Jephthah said to them, my people and I were in a great struggle with the people of Ammon and when I called you, you did not deliver me out of their hands. So essentially verse two, Jephthah blames the Ephraimites. I called you to the battle and you didn't come. And I think in reading the text that it's very likely that Jephthah made this up. We don't see anything in the record that Jephthah ever called Ephraim to the battle. It's like somebody saying, I sent you a text. You didn't get my text? I may not have come. It didn't come through, right? Now notice the text of verse one. Text of verse one could better be translated with Jephthah saying this. I have been a man of great strife. I've been a man of great contention. I've contended greatly with my people and with the people of Ammon. It'd be better really to translate it that way. I've been a man of contention with my people and with the people of Ammon. You didn't come to my aid then. You didn't come out to fight the enemy with me and now you wanna pick a fight with me? Don't give me a hard time, right? You wanna stir up strife with me? Stand in line, Jephthah's essentially saying. Don't be contentious with me. I am a man of contention. You've met your match, in other words. Verse three, so when I saw that you would not deliver me, I took my life and my hands and I crossed over against the people of Ammon and the Lord delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me? Well, that's the response of Jephtah. How did Gideon respond when the Ephraimites came to him this way? Gideon was the politician. He was the diplomat, right? A soft answer turns away wrath. So Gideon with a little bit of wisdom, heeding that wisdom from the Proverbs, Gideon diffused the situation. He wasn't willing to stir up more strife with his own countrymen by the use of hard words. So a soft answer he applied to turn away their wrath and the Ephraimites were diffused. The circumstance was diffused. Jephtah here basically kicks the hornet's nest and says, bring it on. Right, come at me, bro. That's what he's saying to the Ephraimites here. And this is nothing more than a contentious man responding to contention with more contention. Jephtah in it shows little restraint. It appears as though Jephtah is itching for a fight. In that respect, he reminds us a little bit of a bimilek, doesn't he? Reminds us a little bit of that spirit. They're pressing all the right buttons and Jephtah is okay with that. He's allowing his buttons to be pressed, shows very little restraint, shows very little self-control. It doesn't take restraint and often spirit-wrought self-control to respond with wisdom and grace and humility without self-defensiveness when your buttons are being pressed, right? Have to exercise self-control, which is a fruit of the spirit. The proverb goes like this. It says, a soft answer turns away wrath, but what? But a harsh word stirs up anger. That's exactly what happens here. Verse four, Jephtah gathered together all the men of Gilead and he fought against Ephraim. These are his countrymen. These are fellow Jews and the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim because they said you Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites. In other words, the battle in verse four ensued because of an insult. Armies were engaged, weapons were drawn, battlefronts were arrayed, a civil war was waged, lives were lost, essentially because Ephraim called them names. The tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh had settled in that area and the Ephraimites claimed that the Gileadites were just fugitives from Ephraim on the east side of the Jordan. You're just fugitives from Ephraim. They were calling their names essentially and insulted the people of Gilead. So how do Jephthah, how does Jephthah and the Gileadites respond then to this personal insult? These are just words and yet Jephthah goes to war. People of Gilead go to war. Verse five, the Gileadites seized the fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites arrived. And when any Ephraimite who escaped, it's interesting there that word for escaped is the same word used before to call the Gileadites fugitives. So it's a little play on words. It's a twist here of the words. The Gileadites were called fugitives. Now the Ephraimites are called fugitives, right? They turn their word against them. When any Ephraimite who escaped, who became a fugitive said, let me cross over. The men of Gilead would say to him, are you an Ephraimite? If he said no, which of course he would to save his own skin, right? No, I'm not an Ephraimite. I'm not an Ephraimite. From the tribe of Rubin, I'm just going to see family and friends, right? They would say to him, okay, verse six, then say Shibboleth. The Ephraimite would say Sibboleth, for he could not pronounce it right. Then they would take him on this evidence and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time 42,000 Ephraimites, 42,000 of his countrymen, slaughtered over this. Now, Jephthah has them on the run, but he's not satisfied with merely having them on the run. He intends to wipe them out. A tribe in Israel, he wants to wipe them out. So he sets up men at places where you could cross over the Jordan. And whenever anyone wanted to cross over the river Jordan, he would give them the test. And the test would go something like this. Are you from Georgia? No, I'm not from Georgia. Well, say you all. Y'all. I have a mother-in-law. I love her dearly, but the test for her would go something like this. Are you from Georgia? No, say oil. Owl. That would be the end of everyone from Georgia. Everyone from Georgia would be wiped out if they gave them that test. Well, the conflict turns out to be exceedingly tragic. Really, this is a tragedy in the nation of Israel, sort of in an example of a schoolyard anger, sort of a bully vengeance. Jephthah goes to war against his own people, his own people, and 42,000 of them die, killed by the sword. And these are the men who were angry, they weren't called into the battle. Almost wouldn't want them in the battle, right? Jephthah is no longer a means of God to deliver his people. Jephthah is now a prideful, self-interested bully who is the enemy of God's people, acting like a tyrant here. And the fighting and the oppression and the despair and the contention is found as growing now, not from without, but growing from within, from within the nation. It's the cancer that is spreading, the gangrene that is spreading. The nation has continued to decline and they are now on the brink of even destroying themselves from within. It's getting worse and worse and worse, isn't it? So overall, this is a picture of spiritual decline in anyone who allows sin to gain a foothold. If you don't cut off the hand which offends, if you don't pluck out the eye which offends, then you will be poisoned by that rotting flesh member. The account of Jephthah ends with a very brief epilogue in verse seven. Jephthah judged Israel six years and Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried among the cities of Gilead. What's very interesting about verse seven, if you'll notice, is that the record ends without a mention of a lasting peace that was ushered in, right? That was brought about through the tenure of the judge. We've seen that in the other judges at the end of their tenure and there was peace in the land 40 years. There was peace in the land, right? We don't see that here in verse seven at the end of Jephthah's tenure. It leads us to believe there was no lasting peace. Interesting, isn't it? The spiritual decline of the nation is producing bitter fruit. They must turn from their sin. It's going to continue to get worse. It shouldn't be surprising that the man willing to sacrifice anything that came out of his house to greet him, to further his own ambitions would then turn and sacrifice his own countrymen on the altar of his pride. It's also interesting that time and time and time and time and time and time and time again in the life and story and record of Jephthah, it's his words that get him into trouble. It's his words that get him into trouble. I'm reminded of James chapter three. You know, see how great a forest, verse five. See how great a forest, a little fire kindles and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. We see that in the account of Jephthah. It's set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird and reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. With it, we bless our God and Father and with it, we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth, proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh. Who's wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. Notice that wisdom is meek, humble. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, Jephthah, if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, Ephraim, if you have bitter envy or self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. You notice the contrast between this text and what we see in Judges chapter 12. Peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality, without hypocrisy and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Jephthah, Ephraim, the nation, prideful, self-seeking, envy in their hearts, they're not seeking peace. They're stirring up contention. Just goes to show you in living, technicolor splendor, the wisdom of God's word and how in every circumstance of life it is proven true over and over and over again if we will simply heed God's word, turn away from selfish ambition, turn away from selfish self-seeking, turn away from our own desires and heed God's word. They simply don't do it here in Israel. It's difficult to imagine. This was the nation that God led out of Egypt under Moses and for all that generation's problems, right? All their sin unified under the leadership of Moses. There was a unity there. This was the nation that had taken the Promised Land under Joshua and they are coming unravelled at the seams, killing one another off. Strife and contention lead to division. They lead to strife and contention and division in Ephraim, in Israel, and in church. Church is all over our country, all over the globe. It's against this black backdrop that we continue to see the goodness and faithfulness of God at work to deliver his people. He would do so after Jephthah under three judges that we know very little about. Verse eight, after him, after Jephthah, Ibn Zahn of Bethlehem judged Israel. He had 30 sons. He gave away 30 daughters in marriage. He brought in 30 daughters from elsewhere for his sons. He judged Israel seven years. Then Ibn Zahn died and he was buried at Bethlehem. Jephthah had one child and sacrifice or gave her up. Ibn Zahn here, given 30. That often tells you that there were multiple wives involved, which is a direct violation of God's law. Nevertheless, verse 11, after him, Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel. He judged Israel 10 years and Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Ijalan in the country of Zebulun. After him, verse 13, Abdon the son of Hillel the Pyrethonite judged Israel. He had 40 sons, 30 grandsons, who rode on 70 young donkeys. He judged Israel eight years. Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pyrethonite died and was buried in Pyrethon in the land of Ephraim in the mountains of the Amalekites. Three judges, 25 total years of God's undeserved patience, mercy, compassion, loving kindness and grace. And what is noteworthy about each one from the limited information given to us in scripture here is that they died. Think with me, right? Verse seven, Jephthah died. Verse 10, Ibsan died. Verse 12, Elon died. Verse 15, Abdon died. For all this, God would raise up a leader in Israel who would be raised from the dead. God would raise a leader, a deliverer, a savior who continues, who lives forever, always to make intercession for his own. He would be a perfect savior when we see these deliverers in Israel as flawed. He would be a righteous deliverer, always doing righteousness. He would be raised from death. He would usher in an eternal peace, an eternal rest for the people of God. And what we see in the book of Judges, basically in one sense is darkness that comes before the light. And that light was the light of men, amen? And we live on this side of that light and should praise and worship and honor and bless the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for all that he has done for us. He has delivered us from our enemies all around. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the lessons that we learn from the record of the Judges. And we thank you, Lord, that in your steadfast faithfulness to your promises, your steadfast word, your covenant loving kindness, you have faithfully kept your word in raising up for your people a savior, a deliverer, a one who would save them from their sins and would grant them repentance and faith. Change them, Lord, we know that all your promises are yes and amen in him. And we're grateful, Lord, that we are now and dwelt by your spirit, a dwelling place of God by the spirit, being built up stone upon stone into a holy temple, a holy people, a holy nation who will forever sing your praises and worship you. We thank you, Lord, for our great deliverance. We thank you, Lord, for our perfect deliverer, the one who has ushered in for us an everlasting rest. His name be praised. Lord, you glorified in all things. In Jesus' name, amen.