← Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
Cornerstone Chapel - Audio Podcast
From Sin To Restoration: The Pattern God Responds To
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2 Chronicles 6:22-7:22
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Let's go to Second Chronicles. We're in chapter six. If you want to take your Bibles and go there with me to Second Chronicles chapter six. We, we left off at the, in the middle of chapter six last week. So we're going to pick it up at verse 22. And before we pray, just again to orient ourselves, we are in a section now in Second Chronicles that talks about the building of the Temple. And of course, Solomon, the son of King David, had the privilege of being the one to build the temple of the Lord. It took him seven years. Seven years and not a little bit of labor. Over 150,000 workers were employed in the service of building this temple. Within seven years, it stood 90ft long, 30ft wide, 45ft high in Jerusalem. And, and it stood for almost 400 years. But it was destroyed in 586 BC when the Babylonians came and besieged the city of Jerusalem. And so in 2 Chronicles 6, where we left off, we're in the middle of Solomon praying a prayer of dedication, dedicating the temple to the Lord. And there are a lot of things here in chapter six, and I've made like seven principles out of it. I'll be sharing with you tonight where Solomon, in the course of his prayer, actually outlines for us some important theological doctrines. And so this is a good prayer for us to read through as he dedicates the Temple of the Lord. But speaking of prayer, let's do that first and then we'll dive into where we left off. Well, Heavenly Father, we just want to pause right now and thank you for your word. Thank you, Lord, that we can open up our Bibles and read what you have to say to us even today. So thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord, for our freedoms that we enjoy. We just continue to pray for our state and the whole redistricting map. And we pray for Hung Kao and his new role as acting Secretary of the Navy. And we just pray God your blessing on our Bible study that we would not only read, but hear and understand how these things are important for us today as well. And so we just give you praise, Lord. We give you glory for all things. We continue to lift up our troops in the Middle east and pray that you bring them home soon and safely. It's in Jesus name we pray. And everyone said Amen. So we left off last week right at verse 22 of 2 Chronicles, chapter 6. This is all part of his prayer to the Lord as part of this dedication of the Temple. Notice what he says in verse 22 if anyone sins against his neighbor and is forced to take an oath and comes and takes an oath before your altar in this temple, then hear from heaven and act and judge your servants, bringing retribution on the wicked by bringing his way on his own head and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness. What he's talking about here in this section is the importance of oaths. And so again, I'm going to give you seven principles from this prayer. Here's the first one. If you're taking notes, be a person of your word. What he's saying is, lord, for those who are true to their word, bring blessing upon them. For those who are not true to their word, then deal with them. And he underscores here the importance of being a person of your word. You know, the Bible says in Psalm 15:4 that we are to keep our oaths even when it hurts. Keep our oaths even when it hurts. In Numbers, chapter 23, let me just read out of Numbers, chapter 23 and verse 19, it says, God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do? Or has he spoken and will he not make it good? So, so, in other words, because God's character is he is a God of his word, he expects his children, his followers to also be men and women of our word. Keeping your word is so important. There are a lot of people who say things and they don't mean it. It used to be you could make deals on a handshake because your word was your bond. Not so much anymore. And so I would encourage you, if you are someone that understands the importance of meaning what you say and saying what you mean, then let your words be few. Because when we say too much, we've committed with our words. And so, you know, it might be appropriate sometimes instead of just quickly saying something in response like, okay, yes, I promise I will do that. To say something generic enough, buy yourself some time, say something like, you know what? I seriously will consider that. Let me pray about it and I'll get back to you. But otherwise, we can sometimes say things rashly. We haven't really thought it through, we haven't really prayed it through, and then we say it. And now people are expecting us to commit to what we've said. And it's important that we are men and women of our words. So if it means you have to make promises less, make promises less. You're a little vague. Be a little vague. Say you have to pray about it and mean that you have to pray about it rather than just promising things and then not delivering. So that's one important thing that he brings out in this prayer. Now, verse 24, he says, or also, if your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against you, and return and confess your name, circle, confess and pray and make supplication before you in this temple, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people. You can circle forgive, also forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which you gave to them and their fathers. So there's another important thing that Solomon is pointing out to us in this prayer. Be quick to confess sin. God is quick to forgive. Be quick to confess. Like, keep a short account with God. Get right with him quickly. If you know that you've sinned against him, don't go days and days before you confess that as sin. Like, as soon as you are convicted. Like, get right with the Lord. The Bible says in First John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, and confess is just a word that means to agree with God, to say the same thing, okay? So God already knows. And God has his own standard of what is right and what is wrong. And when we violate God's standard, we sin. When we don't measure up to the perfect standard of God, we have sinned. And the Bible makes it clear in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fallen short of his glory. But first John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins, if we agree with God about our sinful condition, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Meaning that we have a father who is quick to forgive. So why should we be slow in confessing? It's not like, you know, and I've said this before, some people have this concept of God that he's, you know, Father God. And other people have the concept that he's the Godfather, you know, and he's like, if you think of him as the Godfather, you're never gonna really wanna draw near to him. Cause you always think he's out to get you. But the truth is that our Father in heaven is a loving, gracious, good, merciful God. Slow to anger, abounding in love. He forgives our sins as far as the east is from the West. So far have I removed your transgressions from you. The Bible says so for all these reasons, we should be quick to confess because we have a loving merciful Father who is eager to forgive us. And so Solomon says, if we sinned and we confess, hear from heaven and forgive. Verse 26. Notice now he's going to talk here about certain consequences. And he says in verse 26, when the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you. Okay, let me just pause there. Does that sound familiar in Israel's history at all? If you remember your story about Elijah the Prophet in 1 Kings, chapter 17 and 18, the Bible says that God had withheld rain. We find out for three and a half years. That was his sign of judgment. And God is doing exactly even as Solomon is praying here about. There are consequences when you sin and rebel against God. What was going on in the days of Elijah, which follows Solomon's time, because the king at that particular time when Elijah was prophet, was King Ahab and his wife was Jezebel. Jezebel was a pagan woman who brought her pagan influence to the throne of Israel. And she was a piece of work, that girl Jezebel, you know, she wanted to kill all of Israel's prophets. She introduced idolatry into the nation of Israel. She does not have a good name. All right, for that reason, do you know any women today called Jezebel? No. Jezebel is like a slur. Now, if somebody is either too seductive or too immoral or too crass, people are referred to. That's a Jezebel, or she has a Jezebel spirit or whatever. And Jezebel was a real person. She was married to King Ahab. But she brought in all this idolatry and this influence to the nation of Israel. And during this time, because of all the idolatry, God withheld rain for three and a half years until there's this showdown on Mount Carmel between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the false gods of the prophets of BAAL and Asherah. And many of you know the story. God shows up in a dramatic, powerful way on Mount Carmel. And all Israel then is convicted of their idolatry. They renounce their sins. They get right with God. And what happens? Because when that moment of repentance happens, then Elijah prays that God would then bring rain from heaven. And he looks out toward the east, toward the Mediterranean Sea, and he sees a cloud coming, like the size of a man's fist, meaning, like, from a distance, when you're looking and you put your fist in front of your face, the cloud is huge, you know, in a distance, and it's coming toward them. And rain returns to the land. So God then is gracious to provide rain, but for three and a half years he had withheld it. Why? As a sign of his judgment. Because of their idolatry. This is the very thing that Solomon is saying could happen. And it ends up happening. When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, that you may teach them the good way in which they should walk and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance, and which is exactly what God did. Verse 28. Notice more consequences. When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, when their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone or by all your people Israel, when each one knows his own burden and his own grief. You ever gotten to the place where you know you've sinned so much you're just. It weighs on you. It's burdensome and it's grievous to your own soul. And Solomon says when he gets to that place and your people are burdened by their own sins, weighed down by their own sins, grieved over their own sins, and notice the rest, and they spread out their hands to this temple. Verse 30. Then hear from heaven your dwelling place, and forgive and give to everyone according to all his ways whose heart you know. So let me just stop there, because this is principle number three. The consequences of sin are intended to move us toward a forgiving Father. There are consequences to sin, and it's not just because God delights in part punishing his people. It's because he wants to afflict them enough so that they will run to him. If there are no consequences, then people will continue in their sin. It's like the same way if you're a parent, the way you raised your kids. If there are no consequences for their wrongdoings, they will think that what they're doing is okay until you impose some consequences and then that trains them and helps them to understand this is wrong. They have to learn the difference between right and wrong. And as people, we have the same tendency as it relates to God. We can be doing things that are sinful and wrong, and if not for the consequences, we would continue down that path. So as much as we don't like the consequences. They are actually a gift from God to bring us to a place of surrender to him so that we wouldn't continue in the same path. And again, because He's a forgiving Father. These consequences are met by a loving, merciful, Heavenly Father. But we have to be aware of the fact that there are consequences to our sins. They are intended to move us toward a forgiving Father. Now, I left off in the middle of a sentence there. Let me just repeat it again in verse 31. Then hear from Heaven your dwelling place and forgive and give to everyone according to all his ways whose heart you know, look at this parenthetical comment. For you alone know the hearts of the sons of men, that they may fear you to walk in youn ways as long as they live in the land which youh gave to our fathers. I think that that's an important point to remember that God alone knows a person's heart. And Solomon is saying this to us. I know it's parenthetical, but it's. It's important. It's because it's all part of his prayer that God alone knows the hearts of the sons of men, knows the hearts of people. You know, we have to be careful to not judge the heart of an individual. Actions and words are pretty clear. But what sometimes is going on in a person's life, we don't know, and we can't always comment. And because we don't know and only God knows. That's why it's okay to say, I don't really know about somebody's life because I don't know their heart. You know, have you ever been asked by somebody and they don't mean this in a mean way. They just say something, you know, you might be talking about your mom or dad, and they say, well, does your mom or dad know the Lord? And sometimes you have to say, I'm not really sure God knows their heart. Because it's hard sometimes to evaluate somebody's walk with Christ. And you don't want to come across like, you know, you're the judge of their hearts. And so sometimes you have to just even say, I don't know. I don't really know. I don't know particularly where they are with the Lord. I think so, but I don't know. And it's better to be vague like that than to be judgmental. Because we don't know a person's heart. We don't know where they are with the Lord. And sometimes I think sometimes we're Going to see people in heaven. We're shocked to see there. I really do now, because I believe since the Bible says there's no more sorrow, no more pain, no more grieving in heaven, I don't think we're going to know who's missing that we would have otherwise thought. I thought they would have made it. I thought we would have seen them here, you know, Sorry, they're not here, you know, I don't think we're even going to know because then that would be sorrowful for us and there's no sorrow in heaven. But I think we're going to be pleasantly shocked and surprised by some people who made it that we didn't think would make it. Why? Well, because we try to judge their hearts and then we think, oh, no, they're not going to make it. But in fact, God knows otherwise, so be careful. Somebody's probably thinking that about you too. By the way, they're going to be shocked to see you there. You'll be like, wow, you made it. Yeah, by the skin of my teeth, I did too. Only God knows our hearts, so we have to be careful. Now look at verse 32. Moreover, concerning a foreigner who is not of your people Israel, but has come from a far country for the sake of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm. When they come and pray in this temple, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, that all peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by your name. Here's the takeaway from this section. Here it's number five. God is not just a God of the Jews, but of all who seek him. Obviously, Solomon is Jewish. This is a Jewish story. This is Jewish history. This is a temple in Jerusalem. The this is built by the Jews. This is a place of worship for the Jews. But Solomon sees beyond all that and he says, but look, you are a God of all people who seek you. And even though there are some who are not of your people Israel, you have a heart for them because you are a God of all people who seek you. Verse 34. And when your people go out to battle against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to you toward this city which you have chosen, and, and the temple which I have built for your name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their supplication and maintain their cause. Verse 36. And when they sin against you. Now, notice another parenthetical comment for there is no one who does not sin. All right, that's another important point. Doesn't matter. That's in parenthesis. What he's telling us is all of us are sinners. So he wants. He's making that clear. Again, this is good theological doctrine here. He's saying, look, we are all sinners. There is no one who does not sin. Romans 3, verse 10. The New Testament is a parallel to this. Romans 3:10. There is none righteous. No, not one of us. And I already quoted Romans 3:23, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. First, John 1:8 says, if we claim we have not sinned, sinned, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. So all of us are sinners. All of us have broken the heart of God and violated his perfect standard, and none of us measures up. And this is so important to understand, because if you don't understand you're a sinner, you won't understand your need for a savior. And you will think that based on your own moral scale, that as long as your good works outweigh your bad stuff, you're good to go. And that is a false doctrine. There's nowhere in the Bible that it teaches us that. In fact, quite the opposite. The Bible says, in Ephesians, we are saved by grace through faith. And this not of works, so that nobody can boast. No one's going to be able to get to heaven. And Jesus is going to ask, how'd you get here? And your answer is going to be, because I did a lot of good stuff for you and because I was a pretty good person. And, you know, especially compared to some of the other people who didn't make it, you know, and you're not going to be able to say stuff like that because it's not based on your works. It's based on one work, and that was the work of the cross, and that was done for you. Because all of us are sinners in need of grace. So Solomon points this out, this is good doctrine. When they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin, and you become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive, captive to a land far or near. Okay, look, this is going to happen in Israel's history. Yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive and repent, circle that word and make supplication to you in the land of their captivity, saying, we have sinned and we have done wrong and have committed wickedness. And when they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity and where they have been carried captive and pray toward their land which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and toward the temple which I have built for your name, then hear from heaven your dwelling place, their prayer and their supplications and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you. Now, my God, I pray, let your eyes be open and let your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place. So I said to you how the temple was built around 967 B.C. it was completed around 960 B.C. and then in 586 B.C. the Babylonians would come and destroy that temple. And what Solomon is praying here about, you know, 375 years before it happened, was, lord, if we sin against you such that you end up bringing foreigners over to take us captive off to their land. Now, Solomon, you know, this has not happened in Israel's history. So Solomon is, prophetically speaking, here about the consequences that can happen when a nation forgets God. And it will happen. The Babylonians come over a course of 20 years, starting in about 606 BC until 586 BC. They attack Jerusalem. They wait out, they finally subdue it, conquer the city, destroy the temple, take the articles, all the gold. Take the articles of the temple to Babylon, which is in modern Iraq. Take thousands of Jews captive to a foreign country. Among them remember Daniel and his buddies Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael. And Solomon says, but when they repent when they're in that land of captivity, but when they turn to you and they repent and they mean it with all their hearts and they're sorry for their wickedness and their sin, would you hear from heaven and forgive their sins? And God does. 70 years they will spend in captivity in Babylon. But God will then work in the heart of the next king of Babylon, who is actually a Persian. Because the Medes and the Persians defeat the Babylonians, the king is King Cyrus. And God will put it on his heart to let the Jewish people go back to their homeland. He's a pagan king. He has no reason to be kind to the Jewish people other than God put it in his heart and he allows them to go back. And Nehemiah helps to rebuild the wall, and Ezra. So all of that story is yet to happen. But Solomon is praying this in advance. And the key word there is repentance. And it's an important word. It's number seven on our list. Repentance is the turning from sin and turning to God. That's repentance. How is it different from confession? Confession is agreeing with God and saying with your mouth the same things that God sees and says about your own life where you acknowledge your sin. That's confessing. Repentance is action. Repentance means you are living your life going one direction. And you make a complete 180 and say, I can't do this anymore and I can't go this direction anymore. And you leave sin where you were going and living, and you go the opposite direction toward God. Because obviously, if you're living in sin, you're living away from God. But when you repent, repentance means to do it about face, 180 degrees. And now you're starting to live your life for the glory of God. It doesn't always come immediately, overnight. Some old habits are hard to break. But as long as your heart is in that right direction and you say, you know, Lord, I've been living my life this way. I know it's wrong. I want to live my life for you. He's merciful to us, and he will begin to. Like an onion peel, one layer at a time. Sometimes people have like a very immediate transformation. But other times people need God to work on them like an onion peeling one layer at a time, dealing with one thing after another until there's eventual surrender more to be like Jesus. But sometimes it's not always easy, and sometimes it doesn't always come quickly. But repentance is an important part of living for the Lord. It's turning from sin and turning toward God. Well, he there in verse 40 where he says, now, my God, I pray, let your eyes be open and let your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place. Then he says, now, therefore arise, O Lord God, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength. Let your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation and let your saints rejoice in goodness. O Lord God, do not turn away the face of your anointed. And it's hard to know exactly who he's referring to. There it's capitalized. It doesn't seem he's referring to Messiah like a prophetic thing. Most Bible scholars believe he means himself. He's not trying to be proud there. He just says, you know, you've anointed me. You've called me for such a time as this as king, so do not turn away the Face from me and remember the mercies of your servant David. We still have a little bit of time. Let's keep going into chapter seven. And it says, and when Solomon had finished praying, notice this fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and, and the sacrifices and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. Now this is that Hebrew word, Shekinah. The Shekinah, glory of God. It, it is referred to in scripture as this mist like cloud that just then fills the temple. He dedicates, Solomon dedicates this temple to the Lord and then this manifest presence of God in the form of his glory, which again is a little vague for us to understand, but it's some kind of a mist like cloud fills the temple. And verse 2 says, and the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. Now it's not necessarily that it's an all consuming power and they couldn't go in because they might have been killed. It's that the cloud was so thick they couldn't see their hand in front of their face. And so it was, they just couldn't even do their duties because the glory of God just thick way. And it says in verse three. And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshipped and praised the Lord saying for he is good and his mercy endures forever. And then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 bulls. And that's a lot of bull right there and 120,000 sheep. And so the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. And the priests attended to their services. The Levites also with instruments of the music of the Lord which King David had made to praise the Lord saying for his mercy endures forever. Whenever David offered praise by their ministry, the priests sounded trumpets opposite them while all Israel stood. And it says in verse seven, furthermore, Solomon consecrated the middle of the court that was in front of the house of the Lord, for there he offered burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings. Because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat. I'm going to jump back to our beginning diagram here. Whoops. The altar. There you can see the smoke rising. It's underneath the dates. That was the altar of sacrifice. It says here that the altar Solomon made was not able to receive the burnt offerings, because that was a separate altar that he stood upon when he was kneeling and raising his hands and praying the prayer of dedication. So he's going to sacrifice on these. Or the priests are going to sacrifice on this altar of burnt offerings. But it's that area there among the pavement which is called the courtyard, that Solomon also dedicates. It says right here. Furthermore, Solomon consecrated. This is verse seven again. He consecrated the middle of the court that was in front of the house of the Lord, because he didn't even want the courtyard to be unholy. You know, interestingly, I love language and I love the etymology of words. The word profane in our English is from two Latin words. Profanum fanum in Latin means temple, and pro means in front of profanum. The things that are profane are in front of outside of the temple. The things that are in the temple are sacred, and the things outside the temple are profanum. It's profane. And so Solomon says, not on my watch, even outside the temple, even on the holy grounds of the courtyard, we will consecrate this place devoted unto the Lord. So everybody who steps in the courtyard will be stepping on holy ground. Nothing profane here, nothing profanum here. And so he dedicates even the courtyard. Verse 8. At that time, Solomon kept the feast seven days and all Israel with him. A very great assembly from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt. So the great assembly from the entrance of a mouth, that's like Lebanon. So it's like Lebanon to Egypt. I think this is like hyperbole here, but it's this huge gathering of people. And on the eighth day they had a sacred assembly, for they observed the dedication of the altar seven days and the feast seven days. And on the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents, joyful and glad of heart for the good that the Lord had done for David, for Solomon, and for his people Israel. And thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's house. And Solomon successfully accomplished all that came into his heart to make in the house of the Lord and his own house. I think we can finish out the chapter. And then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people. And here's this famous verse that is often quoted about the importance of Prayer and repentance for a nation. Verse 14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Oh, that God would do that for America. And God continues to speak. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually. As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and my judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom as I covenanted with David, your father, saying, you shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel. But if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot them from my land which I have given them. And this house which I have sanctified for my name, I will cast out of my sight and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. Is there a temple in Jerusalem today? No. Destroyed in 586. Rebuilt in like 444 B.C. destroyed again by the Romans in 70 A.D. and it stands barren today. It will be rebuilt. Unfortunately, the Bible says it will be rebuilt by the Antichrist. But then when the Lord returns, he will establish his own throne in Jerusalem and he will rule and reign for a thousand years. But the Lord is true to his word here because they engaged in idolatry over hundreds of years. It wasn't as if God got, you know, impatient with them. He was patient with them for hundreds of years. And God is still working on the Jewish people. Romans 11. Paul writes, has God forsaken my people? He says, absolutely not. So God is still at work among the Jewish people, but their hearts, he's waiting. And many Jews are coming to faith in Jesus. Yeshua and I just met with a Messianic rabbi and praise God for the different stories I'm hearing about Jews who are coming to faith in Jesus. But God is at work and he warns them here. And the rest of the chapter says, and as for this house, God says, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, why has the Lord done thus to this land and this house? And then they will answer, because they forsook the Lord, God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt and embraced other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this calamity on them. We'll pause there tonight. Lord, we take to heart those words because we know that you are a God of mercy and grace, but you are also a God of justice. And even though there are consequences to sin, as we've talked about tonight, Lord, those consequences are in order to move us toward you. Otherwise, we would remain in our sin and in our disobedience. Father, we pray for our own nation. Because if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, you will hear from heaven. We continue to pray for you to do a great work. Another great awakening in our own day. That the hearts of men and women and young people across America would once again turn to you. That we would see a revival. This is our regular prayer, Lord, for our nation. That there would be a great revival. A great move of your Holy Spirit once again, Lord, and may you start with us right here. Thank you, Lord, for your word tonight. We just love you and thank you for the cross. It's in Jesus name we pray. And everyone said amen and amen.