81.1 A Preacher Is Taken By God From Among Men

(Hebrew 5:1-6)

Every high priest is chosen from his fellow-men and appointed to serve God on their behalf, to offer sacrifices and offerings for sins. Since he himself is weak in many ways, he is able to be gentle with those who are ignorant and make mistakes.  And because he is himself weak, he  must offer sacrifices not only for the sins of the people but also for his own sins. No one chooses for himself the honor of being a high priest. It is only by God's call that a man is made a high priest-- just as Aaron was.

In the same way, Christ did not take upon himself the honor of being a high priest. Instead, God said to him, "You are my Son; today I have become your father."

He also said in another place, "You will be a priest forever, in the priestly order of Melchizedek."

80.4 Prayer In Great Distress

(Psalm 69:1-18)

Save me, O God! The water is up to my neck;
I am sinking in deep mud, and there is no solid ground;
I am out in deep water, and the waves are about to drown me.
I am worn out from calling for help, and my throat is aching.
I have strained my eyes, looking for your help.

Those who hate me for no reason are more numerous than the hairs of my head.
My enemies tell lies against me; they are strong and want to kill me;
They made me give back things I did not steal.
My sins, O God, are not hidden from you; you know how foolish I have been.
Don't let me bring shame on those who trust in you, Sovereign Lord Almighty!
Don't let me bring disgrace to those who worship you, O God of Israel!

It is for your sake that I have been insulted and that I am covered with shame.
I am like stranger to my brothers, like a foreigner to my family.

My devotion to your Temple burns in me like a fire; the insults which are hurled at you fall on me.
I dress myself in clothes of mourning, and they laugh at me.
They talk about me in the streets, and drunkards make up songs about me.

But as for me, I will pray to you, Lord; answer me, God, at a time you choose.
Answer me because you keep your promise to save.

Save me from sinking in the mud; keep me safe from my enemies, safe from the deep water.
Don't let the flood come over me; don't let me drown in the depths or sink into the grave.

Answer me, O Lord, in the goodness of your constant love; in your great compassion turn to me!
Don't hide yourself from your servant; I am in great trouble--answer me now!
Come to me and save me; rescue me from my enemies.

80.3 When I Preach His Word, I Can Trust In The Lord

(2 Timothy 1:8-14)

Do not be ashamed, then, of witnessing for our Lord; neither be ashamed of me, a prisoner for Christ's sake. Instead, take your part in suffering for the Good News, as God gives you the strength for it. He saved us and called us to be his own people, not because of what we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. He gave us this grace by means of Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but now it has been revealed to us through the coming of our Savior, Christ Jesus. He has ended the power of death and through the gospel has revealed immortal life.

God has appointed me as an apostle and teacher to proclaim the Good News, and it is for this reason that I suffer these things. But I am still full of confidence, because I know whom I have trusted, and I am sure that he is able to keep safe until that Day what he has entrusted to me. Hold firmly to the true words that I taught you, as the example for you to follow,and remain in the faith and love that are ours in union with Christ Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, keep the good things that have been entrusted to you.

80.2 Preach Despite Persecution

(Acts 5:17-21a)

Then the High Priest and all his companions, members of the local party of the Sadducees, became extremely jealous of the apostles; so they decided to take action. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But that night an angel of the Lord opened the prison gates, led the apostles out and said to them, "Go and stand in the Temple, and tell the people all about this new life". The apostles obeyed , and at dawn they entered the Temple and started teaching.

80.1 Courage Under Persecution

(Luke 12: 4-12)

"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot afterward do anything worse. I will show you whom to fear; fear God, who, after killing, has the authority to throw into hell. Believe me, he is the one you must fear!

"Aren't five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one sparrow is forgotten by God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not  be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!

"I assure you that whoever declares publicly that he belongs to me, the Son of Man will do the same for him before the angels of God. But whoever rejects me publicly, the Son of Man will also reject him before the angels of God.

"Anyone who says a word against the Son of Man can be forgiven; but whoever says evil things against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

"When they bring you to be tried in the synagogues or before governors or rulers, do not be worried about how you will defend yourself or what you will say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say."

79.4 Praise The Lord In The Assembly

(Psalm 149)

Praise the Lord!

Sing a new song to the Lord;
praise him in the assembly of his faithful people!
Be glad, Israel,because of your Creator;
rejoice, people of Zion, because of your king!
Praise his name with dancing;
play drums and harps in praise of him.

The Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he honors the humble with victory.
Let God's people rejoice in their triumph
and sing joyfully all night long.
Let them shout aloud as they praise God,
with their sharp swords in their hands
to defeat the nations and to punish the peoples;
to bind their kings in chains,
their leaders in chains of iron;
to punish the nations as God has commanded.
This is the victory of God's people.

Praise the Lord!

79.3 Go And Teach

(Matthew 28:17-20)

When they saw him, they worshiped him, even though some of them doubted. Jesus drew near and said to them, "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age." 

79.2 Witness Of What Happened Toward Damascus

(Acts 26:12-17)

"It was for this purpose that I went to Damascus with authority and orders from the chief priests. It was on the road at midday, Your Majesty, that I saw a light much brighter than the sun, coming from the sky and shining around me and the men traveling with me.  All of us fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, 'Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by hitting back, like an ox kicking against its owner's stick.' 'Who are you Lord?' I asked. And the Lord answered, 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute. But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me today and what I will show you in the future. I will rescue you from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles to whom I will send you.'

79.1 No Fear To Preach

(Acts 18:9-11)

One night Paul had a vision in which the Lord said to him, "Do not be afraid, but keep on speaking and do not give up, for I am with you. No one will be able to harm you, for many of this city are my people." So Paul stayed there for a year and a half, teaching the people the word of God.

78.4 I Will Tell What The Lord Did For Me

(Psalm 66)

Praise God with shouts of joy, all people!
Sing to the glory of his name;
offer him glorious praise!
Say to God, "How wonderful are the things you do!
Your power is so great that your enemies bow down in fear before you.
Everyone on earth worships you.
they sing praises to you,
they sing praises to your name."

Come and see what God has done,
his wonderful acts among men.
He changed the sea into dry land;
our ancestors crossed the river on foot.
There we rejoiced because of what he did.
He rules forever by his might and keeps his eyes on the nations.
Let no rebels rise against him.
Praise our God, all nations; let your praise be heard
He has kept us alive and has not allowed us to fall.

You have put us to the test, God;
as silver is purified by fire, so you have tested us.
You let us fall into a trap and placed heavy burdens on our backs.
You let our enemies trample us;
we went through fire and flood,
but now you have brought us to a place of safety.

I will bring burnt offerings to your house;
I will offer you what I promised.
I will give you what I said I would when I was in trouble.
I will offer sheep to be burned on the altar;
I will sacrifice bulls and goats,
and the smoke will go up to the sky.

Come and listen, all who honor God,
and I will tell you what he has done for me.
I cried to him for help, I praised him with songs.
If I had ignored my sins, the Lord would not have listened to me.
But God has indeed heard me;
he has listened to my prayer.

I praise God, because he did not reject my prayer or keep back his constant love from me.

78.3 We Preach Christ Crucified

(1 Corinthians 1:22-25)

Jews want miracles for proof, and Greeks look for wisdom. As for us, we proclaim the crucified Christ, a message that is offensive to the Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles; but for those whom God has called, both Jews and Gentiles, this message is Christ, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For what seems to be God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and what seems to be God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

78.2 Preach At All Times

(2 Timothy 4:1-5)

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and because he is coming to rule as King, I solemnly urge you to preach the message to insist upon proclaiming it (whether the time is right or not), to convince, reproach, and encourage, as you teach with all patience. The time will come when people will not listen to sound doctrine, but will follow their own desires and will collect for themselves more and more teachers who will tell them what they are itching to hear. They will turn away from listening to the truth and give their attention to legends. But you must keep control of yourself in all circumstances; endure suffering, do the work of a preacher of the Good News, and perform your whole duty as a servant of God.

78.1 No Need For Big Words

(1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

When I came to you, my brothers, to preach God's secret truth, I did not use big words and great learning. For while I was with you, I made up my mind to forget every thing except Jesus Christ and especially his death on the cross. So when I came to you, I was weak and trembled all over with fear, and my teaching and message were not delivered with skillful words of human wisdom, but with convincing proof of the power of God's Spirit. Your faith, then, does not rest on human wisdom but on God's power.

77.4 Lord, Help Your People

(Psalm 44)

With our own ears we have heard it, O God-
our ancestors have told us about it,
about the great things you did in their time,
in the days of long ago;
how you yourself drove out the heathen
and established your people in their land;
how you punished the other nations
and caused your own to prosper.

Your people did not conquer the land with their swords;
they did not win it by their own power;
it was by your power and your strength,
by the assurance of your presence,
which showed that you loved them.

You are my king and my God;
you give victory to your people,
and by your power we defeat our enemies.
I do not trust in my bow or in my sword to save me;
but you have saved us from our enemies and defeated those who hate us.
We will always praise you and give thanks to you forever.

But now you have rejected us and let us be defeated;
you no longer march out with our armies.
You made us run from our enemies,
and they took for themselves what was ours.
You allowed us to be slaughtered like sheep;
you scattered us in foreign countries.
You sold your own people for a small price as though they had little value.

Our neighbors see what you did to us,
and they mock us and laugh at us.
You have made us a joke among the nations;
they shake their heads at us in scorn.
I am always in disgrace;
I am covered with shame from hearing the sneers and insults of my enemies and those who hate me.

All this has happened to us,
even though we have not forgotten you or broken the covenant you made with us.
We have not been disloyal to you;
we have not disobeyed your commands.
Yet you left us helpless among wild animals;
you abandoned us in deepest darkness.

If we had stopped worshiping our God and prayed to a foreign God,
you would surely have discovered it,
because you know our secret thoughts.
But it is on your account that we are being killed all the time,
that we are treated like sheep to be slaughtered.

Wake up, Lord! Why are you asleep?
Rouse yourself! Don't reject us forever!
Why are you hiding from us?
Don't forget our suffering and trouble!

We fall crushed to the ground;
we lie defeated in the dust.
Come to our aid!
Because of your constant love save us!

77.3 Paul Prays That We May Experience God's Love

(Ephesians 3:14-19)

For this reason I fall on my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth receives its true name. I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love. Yes, may you come to know his love- although it can never be fully known- and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.

To him who by means of his power working in us is able to do so much more that we can ever ask for, or even think of; to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever! Amen.

77.2 The Centurion Asks Healing For His Servant

(Matthew 8:5-13)

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a Roman officer met him and begged for help: "Sir, my servant is sick in bed at home, unable to move and suffering terribly."

"I will go and make him well," Jesus said.
"Oh, no, sir," answered the officer. "I do not deserve to have you come into my house. Just give the order, and my servant will get well. I, too, am a man under the authority of superior officers, and I have soldiers under me. I order this one, 'Go!' and he goes; and I order that one, 'Come!' and he comes; and I order my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it."

When Jesus heard this, he was surprised and said to the people following him, "I tell you, I have never found anyone in Israel with faith like this. I assure you that many will come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of heaven. But those who should be in the Kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness, where they will cry and gnash their teeth." Then Jesus said to the officer, "Go home, and what you believe will be done for you."

And the officer's servant was healed that very moment.

77.1 Moses Prays For His People After They Have Sinned

(Deuteronomy 9:15-21)

"So I turned and went down the mountain, carrying the two stone tablets on which the covenant was written. Flames of fire were coming from the mountain,. I saw that you had already disobeyed the command that the Lord your God had given you, and that you had sinned against him by making yourselves a metal idol in the form of a bull-calf.  So there in front of you I threw the stone tablets down and broke them to pieces. Then once again I lay face downward in the Lord's presence for forty days and nights and did not eat or drink anything. I did this because you had sinned against the Lord and had made him angry. I was afraid of the Lord's fierce anger, because he was furious enough to destroy you; but once again the Lord listened to me. The Lord was also angry enough with Aaron to kill him, so I prayed for Aaron at the same time. I took that sinful thing that you had made- that metal bull-calf and threw it into the fire. Then I broke it in pieces, ground it to dust, and threw the dust into the stream that flowed down the mountain.

76.4 The Lord Helps Those Who Do Good

(Psalm 80)

Listen to us, O Shepherd of Israel;
hear us, leader of your flock.
Seated on your throne above the winged creatures,
reveal yourself to the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.
Show us your strength; come and save us!

Bring us back, o God!
Show us your mercy , and we will be saved!

How much longer, Lord God Almighty,
will you be angry with your people's prayers?
You have given us sorrow to eat,
a large cup of tears to drink.
You let the surrounding nations
fight over our land; our enemies insult us.

Bring us back, Almighty God!
Show us your mercy, and we will be saved!

You brought a grapevine out of Egypt;
you drove out other nations and planted it in their land.
You cleared a place for it to grow;
its roots went deep, and it spread out over the whole land.
It covered the hills with its shade;
its branches overshadowed the giant cedars.
It extended its branches to the Mediterranean Sea
and as far as the Euphrates River.
Why did you break down the fences around it?
Now anyone passing by can steal its grapes;
wild hogs trample it down, and wild animals feed on it.

Turn to us, Almighty God!
Look down from heaven at us;
come and save your people!
Come and save this grapevine that you planted,
this young vine you made grow so strong!

Our enemies have set it on fire and cut it down;
look at them in anger and destroy them!
Preserve and protect the people you have chosen,
the nation you made so strong.
We will never turn away from you again;
keep us alive, and we will praise you.

Bring us back, Lord God Almighty.
Show us your mercy, and we will be saved.

76.3 Stephen Prays For His Killers

(Acts 7:54-60)

As the members of the Council listened to Stephen, they became furious and ground their teeth at him in anger. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw God's glory and Jesus standing at the right side of God. "Look!" he said. "I see heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right side of God!"

With a loud cry the Council members covered their ears with their hands. Then they all rushed at him at once, threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses left their cloaks in the care of a young man named Saul. They kept on stoning Stephen as he called out to the Lord, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" He knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, "Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!" He said this and died.

76.2 Samuel Prays For Forgiveness Of Sins

(1 Samuel 7:2-6)

The Covenant Box of the Lord stayed in Kiriath Jearim a long time, some twenty years. During this time all the Israelites cried to the Lord for help.

Samuel said to the people of Israel, "If you are going to turn to the Lord with all your hearts, you must get rid of all the foreign gods and the images of the goddess Astarte. Dedicate yourselves completely to the Lord and worship only him, and he will rescue you from the power of the Philistines." So the Israelites got rid of their idols of Baal and Astarte, and worship only the Lord.

Then Samuel called for all the Israelites to meet at the Mizpah, telling them, "I will pray to the Lord for you there." So they all gathered at Mizpah. They drew some water and poured it out as an offering to the Lord and fasted that whole day. They said, "We have sinned against the Lord." (It was a Mizpah where Samuel settled disputed among the Israelites.)