Douglas Horton - "The Christmas Feast" (December 11, 1955)
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| (inspirational organ music) | 0:03 | |
| ♪ Praise God, from whom all blessings flow ♪ | 0:28 | |
| ♪ Praise Him, all creatures here below ♪ | 0:36 | |
| ♪ Praise Him above, ye heav'nly host ♪ | 0:44 | |
| ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ | 0:53 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 1:04 | |
| - | God, from whom cometh down | 1:13 |
| every good and every perfect gift, | 1:16 | |
| except we beseech thee | 1:19 | |
| the offerings which thy people here present to thee, | 1:21 | |
| with willing and thankful hearts | 1:24 | |
| and grant us grace to consecrate ourselves to thy service. | 1:27 | |
| Through Jesus Christ, our blood, amen. | 1:32 | |
| Let me ask you this morning | 2:04 | |
| to gather your thoughts about the very familiar words, | 2:06 | |
| "Thou preparest a table before me | 2:11 | |
| in the presence of mine enemies," | 2:14 | |
| part of the 23rd Psalm. | 2:18 | |
| Henry Ward Beecher wrote of the 23rd Psalm | 2:22 | |
| this surpassing ode | 2:26 | |
| is but a moment opening of the singer's soul | 2:29 | |
| as when one walking the winter streets | 2:34 | |
| sees the door opened for someone to enter | 2:37 | |
| and the red light streams a moment forth | 2:42 | |
| and the forms of gay children are running | 2:45 | |
| to meet the comer and genial music sound. | 2:48 | |
| Then the door shuts and leaves the night black. | 2:53 | |
| He went on to point out that the eyes, the ears, | 2:59 | |
| the heart, and the imagination | 3:03 | |
| have seen something that they carry with them into the dark, | 3:07 | |
| but he doesn't play down that moment of light | 3:12 | |
| and the surrounding night. | 3:16 | |
| So Christmas Day itself | 3:20 | |
| coming in the midst of the routines of the winter | 3:23 | |
| opens a sudden door | 3:27 | |
| from which at least for an instant | 3:31 | |
| streams of Earth from the light from heaven. | 3:34 | |
| The surrounding year may be dreary enough, | 3:38 | |
| but that day is different. | 3:42 | |
| Even my text | 3:47 | |
| suggests something of the oasis quality | 3:49 | |
| of a single experience | 3:52 | |
| in the midst of circumstances quite distinct. | 3:54 | |
| It says, thou preparest a table before me, | 3:58 | |
| but it is in the presence of mine enemies. | 4:05 | |
| This is a curious situation. | 4:09 | |
| I sit down to feast at thee table | 4:12 | |
| the Lord has prepared for me. | 4:15 | |
| There might be even a few friends present too, | 4:19 | |
| but the total environment is hostile. | 4:23 | |
| The pleasure of the feast may cause me to forget, | 4:27 | |
| or even disdain the hostility, | 4:31 | |
| but the latter remains and they peruse | 4:34 | |
| all about a continuing threat. | 4:36 | |
| The early Christians seem to have had something | 4:42 | |
| of this same view of light. | 4:45 | |
| Now and then, | 4:48 | |
| an alert individual like Saint Paul | 4:50 | |
| would see the light from God | 4:54 | |
| shining through on the Damascus Road. | 4:58 | |
| But for the most part, | 5:02 | |
| he lived in what he called the world, | 5:03 | |
| a place which did not at all remind him of God, | 5:08 | |
| and which was always threatening to close in around him. | 5:12 | |
| And who today will say that life is not like that? | 5:17 | |
| There are the mountain top experiences, | 5:22 | |
| which always | 5:26 | |
| for all one's expectation of them seem to come suddenly. | 5:29 | |
| They seem almost to have a spiritual content | 5:35 | |
| to be morally cleansing. | 5:40 | |
| A companion once said to me on the top of a peak | 5:43 | |
| from which vast fields of shining snow and ice | 5:47 | |
| led down to green valleys in every direction, | 5:51 | |
| you can't think a mean thought here, can you? | 5:56 | |
| But few of us live in a spot which commands magnificence | 6:00 | |
| on every hand. | 6:05 | |
| Such places are seldom reached. | 6:07 | |
| It is the world in Saint Paul's own meaning | 6:10 | |
| that lies about us most of the time. | 6:16 | |
| Such a spot, however, is Christmas. | 6:19 | |
| Such a place is the Christmas table. | 6:23 | |
| I suppose the most famous description of a Christmas dinner | 6:27 | |
| is that in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." | 6:31 | |
| You can understand why I thought of that | 6:36 | |
| as I read my text thou preparest a table before me. | 6:38 | |
| I read this over again last night | 6:43 | |
| and took down a few sentences | 6:45 | |
| to make your mouth water for your own Christmas dinner | 6:48 | |
| a few days hence. | 6:52 | |
| "Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy | 6:55 | |
| ready beforehand in a little saucepan hissing hot. | 6:59 | |
| Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor. | 7:03 | |
| Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce. | 7:08 | |
| Martha dusted the hot plates. | 7:12 | |
| Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table. | 7:15 | |
| The two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, | 7:20 | |
| not forgetting themselves, | 7:23 | |
| and mounting guard upon their posts, | 7:26 | |
| crammed spoons into their mouths, | 7:28 | |
| lest they should shriek for goose | 7:30 | |
| before their turn came to be helped. | 7:32 | |
| There never was such a goose. | 7:35 | |
| Bob said he didn't believe | 7:39 | |
| there ever was such a goose cooked. | 7:40 | |
| Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, | 7:43 | |
| were the themes of universal admiration." | 7:49 | |
| Now, let us make no mistake about who it was | 7:53 | |
| who prepared that Christmas dinner | 7:57 | |
| and who it is who will prepare ours. | 8:00 | |
| It all begins with giving on God's part. | 8:04 | |
| He gives to us the material universe even | 8:08 | |
| to work and live in, | 8:11 | |
| and all that sustains us in that universe. | 8:14 | |
| The courses of the Christmas dinner, | 8:18 | |
| like the elements of the Holy Supper, come from God to us | 8:21 | |
| for no man by taking thought can make a grain of wheat | 8:26 | |
| or the smallest grape. | 8:32 | |
| This is always true, of course, | 8:34 | |
| but it seems especially easy to appreciate at Christmas. | 8:37 | |
| And that gift from God is a pure one. | 8:43 | |
| There is no reason under heaven or above it | 8:47 | |
| why he should have given us all these things | 8:51 | |
| richly to enjoy, except that he is a loving God. | 8:54 | |
| No man can say with proof that he has deserved of God. | 9:00 | |
| Any of these things, this is the meaning of God's grace. | 9:05 | |
| He prepares a table before me. | 9:11 | |
| But what about those enemies? | 9:15 | |
| They're all about. | 9:17 | |
| I would take them this morning to be the spirits | 9:20 | |
| that rule the world, | 9:24 | |
| that govern most of the days of most of us. | 9:27 | |
| And I shall speak of two of them: | 9:31 | |
| the spirit of selfishness and the spirit of impersonality. | 9:34 | |
| For the moment, in fact, | 9:40 | |
| I should play the devil's advocate | 9:42 | |
| and try to show you | 9:46 | |
| how much wiser one of these spirits is | 9:47 | |
| than the one which possesses you at Christmas. | 9:52 | |
| There's your Christmas dinner. | 9:56 | |
| It's very good as dinners go, | 9:59 | |
| but is every member of the family | 10:02 | |
| really getting everything out of it that he might? | 10:05 | |
| There is your father, for instance. | 10:09 | |
| He's a hard working man who needs and can wisely use | 10:12 | |
| all the money he can get. | 10:17 | |
| But has not anybody ever pointed out to him | 10:20 | |
| what an opportunity for profit he is missing | 10:24 | |
| by his inadequate use of the Christmas feast? | 10:28 | |
| Why doesn't he invite all the family in as usual | 10:33 | |
| and possibly even as many friends and relatives | 10:38 | |
| as can be accommodated, | 10:42 | |
| and then let them know how much the dinner cost him? | 10:45 | |
| Just incidentally, of course, | 10:49 | |
| but nonetheless let them know. | 10:51 | |
| After all, he had to pay for it, | 10:54 | |
| and it's only fair that those who enjoy it | 10:56 | |
| should share the expense. | 11:00 | |
| A simple and un-intrusive to handle a matter | 11:03 | |
| would be to let each one find a little menu at his place | 11:06 | |
| indicating that a slice of turkey cost so much, | 11:11 | |
| potatoes so much, | 11:15 | |
| and that each could have an extra helping of dessert | 11:17 | |
| for a mere quarter. | 11:22 | |
| But of course, | 11:24 | |
| your father is not the only wise member of your family. | 11:26 | |
| There's your mother too. | 11:29 | |
| I wonder if you and your brothers and sisters | 11:32 | |
| realize how much she works for you. | 11:35 | |
| The immediate preparation of the meal | 11:39 | |
| has been very largely in her hands. | 11:41 | |
| She spent a long time over it and everybody knows | 11:45 | |
| how busy with other things she is. | 11:49 | |
| It would rather too bad if she didn't cash in on the event. | 11:52 | |
| She might put a little price mark in the central dishes | 11:58 | |
| before she has them brought in, | 12:01 | |
| or it could be pay as you enter for that matter. | 12:04 | |
| Mother seeing that she got her share | 12:07 | |
| and father seeing that he got his, | 12:10 | |
| what a happy Christmas dinner that will be. | 12:13 | |
| Now you will write this down | 12:18 | |
| as the fantastic notion it really is. | 12:20 | |
| It's obviously necessary that we should make use of money | 12:25 | |
| as a medium of exchange. | 12:29 | |
| But when it becomes a paramount matter, | 12:32 | |
| when we have more joy in the gaining of it | 12:36 | |
| than in the friendship of our friends, | 12:39 | |
| the affection of our loved ones, | 12:42 | |
| the well-being of humanity, | 12:45 | |
| then the world has inner demons, | 12:47 | |
| then the enemy has passed through our gates, | 12:51 | |
| then the darkness has closed in, | 12:55 | |
| then Christmas has gone. | 12:58 | |
| Call the notion fantastic, | 13:01 | |
| but when you do, remember | 13:04 | |
| that it is upon this basis precisely | 13:08 | |
| that we conduct much of our life. | 13:13 | |
| This is the spirit of economic imperialism. | 13:17 | |
| A success at any price. | 13:20 | |
| Of no little hard bargaining between the classes, | 13:23 | |
| the races, and the nations. | 13:27 | |
| The Cold War in its very essence is a business | 13:31 | |
| of getting as much from | 13:35 | |
| and giving as little to the potential enemy as possible. | 13:37 | |
| It may be said that this is inevitable. That may be true. | 13:42 | |
| All I'm saying at the moment | 13:46 | |
| is don't call it an expression of the Christmas spirit. | 13:48 | |
| The spirit which animates it is the enemy, | 13:54 | |
| or one of the enemies, | 13:58 | |
| in the presence of whom or which | 14:00 | |
| our Christmas table is prepared. | 14:03 | |
| Now another spirit of the world | 14:08 | |
| which is hostile to Christmas, | 14:10 | |
| which surrounds it as the night a prison of light, | 14:13 | |
| is that of impersonality. | 14:18 | |
| Time was an agrarian America. | 14:21 | |
| When they eat also the village community | 14:24 | |
| dominated the lives of our ancestors | 14:28 | |
| and forbade the intrusion of overcommercialized motives, | 14:31 | |
| which murder community. | 14:35 | |
| The farmer milked his cows in the morning, | 14:38 | |
| gave the milk to a boy known to everybody in the village | 14:41 | |
| to deliver it for an agreed upon wage, | 14:45 | |
| and saw to it that it was duly delivered | 14:49 | |
| at the houses of those | 14:52 | |
| who were not only his fellow citizens | 14:54 | |
| but his fellow church members and friends as well. | 14:56 | |
| At the end of the month, or even of the year, | 15:00 | |
| these paid the farmer what they owed him, | 15:04 | |
| either in cash or in kind. | 15:07 | |
| Producer, distributor | 15:09 | |
| and consumer all knew each other well, | 15:11 | |
| and no one tried to levy upon the line of exchange | 15:15 | |
| all the traffic would bear, | 15:19 | |
| as I'm afraid we must say is characteristic | 15:22 | |
| of our economic life today. | 15:26 | |
| But now, | 15:29 | |
| if Durham is anything like the city in which I live, | 15:31 | |
| the milk you drink here is brought | 15:35 | |
| from farms you never saw. | 15:37 | |
| It's distributed by an organization | 15:40 | |
| whose ramifications probably covered a good part | 15:42 | |
| of the middle Atlantic and Southeastern seaboard | 15:46 | |
| and involve thousands of men and millions of dollars. | 15:50 | |
| The price of the milk reflects in partly stripe | 15:55 | |
| between groups of labor and capital, | 15:59 | |
| the rank and file of whom wouldn't know each other | 16:02 | |
| if they met. | 16:06 | |
| In a word, the procedure has become | 16:07 | |
| enormous and impersonal, | 16:10 | |
| in the very nature of which | 16:13 | |
| there can be little left of village amity | 16:15 | |
| to lay a restraint upon ungoverned human motives. | 16:20 | |
| This is the world, | 16:24 | |
| partly immoral because it is selfish, | 16:27 | |
| but partly simply unmoral | 16:31 | |
| because there's so little personality left in it. | 16:34 | |
| This is the enemy. This is the dark. | 16:38 | |
| Now, what are you going to do about it? | 16:43 | |
| Some of you will say, I'm sure, | 16:46 | |
| "Can't we extend the spirit of Christmas | 16:49 | |
| so that it will cover the year? | 16:52 | |
| Can't we thrust the edge of its light into the darkness | 16:56 | |
| and eliminate that darkness? | 16:59 | |
| Can't we enlarge the oasis | 17:03 | |
| so that the whole desert will bring forth | 17:05 | |
| and blossom as the rose?" | 17:08 | |
| I'm glad you said that. | 17:11 | |
| I believe it in a way, but don't go Pollyanna on us. | 17:14 | |
| Don't think that this is any little chore | 17:18 | |
| that you can get tidied up before supper time. | 17:21 | |
| You are right now in the midst of cosmic forces. | 17:25 | |
| The fight against these enemies I have named | 17:29 | |
| is colossal beyond all computation. | 17:32 | |
| No one can see the end of it. | 17:36 | |
| And in the very immensity of it, | 17:39 | |
| I think this is fair, nonetheless to say | 17:42 | |
| in the very immensity of it lies its challenge. | 17:44 | |
| It's brought its power to bring you up to your best. | 17:48 | |
| To you and me, the forces of selfishness in the world | 17:53 | |
| are at the moment invincible. | 17:57 | |
| Not long ago, a real estate man well-known in his community | 18:00 | |
| as a public spirited citizen said to me, "We do our best." | 18:03 | |
| But of course, a real estate broker cannot be Christian. | 18:10 | |
| When I looked a bit uncertain, he went on. | 18:14 | |
| It's true, simple. | 18:18 | |
| If I wanted to be a Christian to my brother man | 18:20 | |
| about to buy a house, | 18:24 | |
| I should point out the defects in the property | 18:26 | |
| as well as the advantages. | 18:28 | |
| But if I want to sell the house, | 18:31 | |
| although I mention the defects | 18:34 | |
| just to sound my own conscience, | 18:35 | |
| I do so in such a way that the advantages | 18:38 | |
| outweigh them in his mind. | 18:42 | |
| If I don't do this, | 18:45 | |
| then my competitor will sell him a house, | 18:47 | |
| and I shall finally end up on the poor farm | 18:50 | |
| where I shall have plenty of time to ruminate | 18:54 | |
| on the thought that a man cannot be as Christian | 18:58 | |
| as he would like to be in a non-Christian world. | 19:01 | |
| Years ago, before the laws against it had been passed, | 19:06 | |
| the sweating of labor was prevalent | 19:12 | |
| in the garment making industry in New York state. | 19:15 | |
| Right-minded employers simply hated the system, | 19:19 | |
| but as one of them said, | 19:22 | |
| "Why do your competitors sweat their labor? | 19:25 | |
| They can undersell you if you do not. | 19:28 | |
| You cannot be part | 19:31 | |
| of this industrial system without conforming." | 19:33 | |
| I could go on and on with illustrations, | 19:38 | |
| as undoubtedly you could, but this isn't necessary, | 19:41 | |
| for any person of experience realizes | 19:45 | |
| that we are all parts of one bundle of social life, | 19:50 | |
| each one being infected with any moral disease | 19:55 | |
| which is endemic in the whole. | 20:00 | |
| The forces of the enemy are well-coordinated. | 20:03 | |
| They are as old as the race, | 20:08 | |
| and as well-disciplined as time can make them. | 20:11 | |
| A single individual may preach against them, | 20:15 | |
| may educate against them, | 20:19 | |
| may even provide inspiration to a society | 20:22 | |
| to move against them. | 20:26 | |
| But a social evil finally demands a social attack. | 20:28 | |
| This race is not a sprint. | 20:33 | |
| It will not be to the sweat. | 20:36 | |
| This battle is a war. | 20:38 | |
| It will not be to the temporarily strong. | 20:41 | |
| If you are going to direct the spirit of Christmas | 20:44 | |
| against the spirit of selfishness, | 20:49 | |
| remember that it is a long job. | 20:51 | |
| I shall now more than mention | 20:57 | |
| the difficulty of overcoming the impersonality | 21:00 | |
| of the human situation today. | 21:05 | |
| Which of you by taking thought | 21:09 | |
| can add a Cupid of intimacy | 21:12 | |
| to a world of over a billion people, | 21:17 | |
| or even to a nation of 150 million, | 21:20 | |
| or to any of our greater cities? | 21:24 | |
| Bigness almost carries with it | 21:28 | |
| the quality of impersonality. | 21:31 | |
| A community can legislate | 21:35 | |
| against certain selfish practices, | 21:39 | |
| but how can you legislate against | 21:45 | |
| the unmoral dimension of a total contemporary population? | 21:48 | |
| Will you write on the statute books? | 21:56 | |
| Be it hereby enacted | 22:00 | |
| that after the last day of December of the current year, | 22:03 | |
| the citizens of this community shall be | 22:07 | |
| and are hereby enabled to be | 22:11 | |
| brotherly and sympathetic members of society. | 22:14 | |
| A lot of good that will do. | 22:19 | |
| The business of expanding Christmas | 22:22 | |
| to the fullness of the year, | 22:25 | |
| I'm inviting to its table the whole human race, | 22:27 | |
| is not any easy one. | 22:31 | |
| It is too simple for us | 22:35 | |
| to resort to impersonal principles. | 22:37 | |
| And upon this resort | 22:42 | |
| hangs much of our difficulty in the world. | 22:44 | |
| How are you going to resolve, for instance, | 22:48 | |
| the difficulty which now holds | 22:51 | |
| between the Jews in Palestine and the Arabs round about? | 22:53 | |
| You can see that there isn't enough justice to go around. | 23:00 | |
| You yourselves, I'm sure, can advance a series of arguments | 23:05 | |
| to prove that the Jews should be there. | 23:09 | |
| An equally long and as strong series of arguments | 23:13 | |
| can be abused to prove that the Arabs should be there. | 23:18 | |
| Who are you going to place the boundaries of Poland? | 23:23 | |
| If you go back to the seventh century, | 23:27 | |
| you'll place them in one spot. | 23:29 | |
| If you go back only 150 years, | 23:32 | |
| you'll put them in another place. | 23:35 | |
| In order to do justice to the people | 23:38 | |
| who traditionally have lived there. | 23:42 | |
| The same holds of the boundaries of Alsace-Lorraine. | 23:45 | |
| Justice sees the end to which we should all strive, | 23:50 | |
| but you can make only the first attempt | 23:57 | |
| to look toward and then find that you are confronted | 23:59 | |
| with a situation that you cannot quite meet, | 24:04 | |
| and it is so big that you cannot discover | 24:08 | |
| any way of bringing that essence of personality | 24:12 | |
| which is forgiveness into the situation. | 24:17 | |
| How will you teach the great world of man to forgive? | 24:21 | |
| How will you lay that basis upon which alone | 24:28 | |
| these difficult political situations | 24:33 | |
| may be resolved? | 24:39 | |
| Now, before you have any negative thoughts | 24:42 | |
| about my proposition, since it is so difficult, | 24:46 | |
| remember that we have an ally as well as an enemy, | 24:50 | |
| and an ally who will overcome them in the end. | 24:56 | |
| Thou preparest a table before me. | 25:01 | |
| The spirit that makes Christmas what it is | 25:05 | |
| takes its source from the very heart of God himself. | 25:09 | |
| It reflects the very character of the universe's maker. | 25:14 | |
| Stay close to him and see what happens. | 25:19 | |
| Worship at his altars regularly, | 25:24 | |
| and regularly give yourself to thought about him | 25:29 | |
| and prayer to him. | 25:32 | |
| Maintain your contact with him | 25:34 | |
| and you yourself will become a channel | 25:38 | |
| through which his slowly but surely | 25:43 | |
| created work in society may be done. | 25:47 | |
| Transfer the center of your life from yourself to him. | 25:52 | |
| Begin to see the world through his eyes. | 25:57 | |
| Look at your age through the eyes of the aegis. | 26:01 | |
| That, after all, is the greatest aid you can give | 26:06 | |
| in the battle against selfishness. | 26:11 | |
| And what better defense can you have | 26:15 | |
| against succumbing to impersonality? | 26:18 | |
| He is not far from any one of us. | 26:22 | |
| You cannot see the world through his eyes | 26:25 | |
| without seeing it within intimate concern. | 26:30 | |
| With him, you begin to weep over Jerusalem. | 26:33 | |
| Stay close to him, eat at his table, | 26:37 | |
| and then eventually | 26:41 | |
| he will work his will through you | 26:44 | |
| and through others like you on the world. | 26:47 | |
| Just after the Great War, | 26:52 | |
| a few of us flew to Japan | 26:54 | |
| to see what was left of Christianity there. | 26:57 | |
| Actually, we found a good many | 27:01 | |
| who hadn't bowed beneath the bail. | 27:03 | |
| It was on that occasion that we had an audience | 27:07 | |
| with the emperor, | 27:09 | |
| and I remember well walking along | 27:12 | |
| the passageway that led to the audience room, | 27:16 | |
| wondering what the emperor would be like | 27:20 | |
| and how we would receive us. | 27:23 | |
| Would he be standing or sitting? | 27:26 | |
| If sitting, would he be in a chair | 27:29 | |
| or perhaps even in a throne? | 27:30 | |
| On a throne? | 27:34 | |
| Actually, he stood and held out his hand | 27:35 | |
| in most democratic fashion. | 27:39 | |
| On another occasion many years ago, | 27:43 | |
| and this has been repeated more than once, | 27:46 | |
| I saw another emperor. | 27:49 | |
| This was not on a flight by airplane, | 27:52 | |
| but on a flight of fancy. | 27:55 | |
| But just remember how right Ruskin was when he said | 27:57 | |
| that imagination is the human ability | 28:02 | |
| to see things as they are. | 28:06 | |
| And on this flight, I saw not the emperor of a mere Japan, | 28:09 | |
| but the emperor of the universe, | 28:15 | |
| of all that is therein. | 28:19 | |
| Now, no man has seen God at any time, | 28:23 | |
| but through his word, he contrives to reveal himself. | 28:27 | |
| Saint Paul thought he saw him | 28:32 | |
| in a great light that he'd made the noontime seem dark. | 28:35 | |
| Isaiah thought he saw him on a throne high and lifted up, | 28:40 | |
| his train filling the temple. | 28:46 | |
| Imagine my surprise after wondering what he looked like | 28:49 | |
| to find him neither standing nor sitting | 28:56 | |
| but nailed to a cross. | 29:00 | |
| Now he didn't need to be there. | 29:03 | |
| He could have remained in quiet Nazareth | 29:07 | |
| under his own vine and fig tree. | 29:11 | |
| But in no other way could he reveal in human terms | 29:15 | |
| the extent of his love for mankind, except upon the cross. | 29:20 | |
| He gives all and demands nothing in return. | 29:27 | |
| This is the very essence of his love | 29:33 | |
| and the very essence of all love. | 29:36 | |
| This is the essence of his table. | 29:40 | |
| This is the essence of Christmas. | 29:42 | |
| Now make him the host at your Christmas table | 29:46 | |
| and at every table, even though your enemies are many, | 29:51 | |
| and you will find him slowly but surely | 29:57 | |
| changing your own light, | 30:02 | |
| giving you the power | 30:05 | |
| of patience in conviction. | 30:09 | |
| Stay close to his mighty person. | 30:13 | |
| Potentially, he has already overcome the world. | 30:17 | |
| Gradually, he will do so indeed. | 30:22 | |
| Then you will have no fears for the enemy round about, | 30:27 | |
| but always looking to him. | 30:35 | |
| Be strengthened in the inner man. | 30:39 | |
| In other words, you will be allowed | 30:42 | |
| to be the person he designed you to be. | 30:46 | |
| Let us pray. | 30:52 | |
| Almighty God, if there be truth | 31:03 | |
| in the words which have been spoken, | 31:06 | |
| we humbly pray that thou would right that truth | 31:10 | |
| upon our hearts. | 31:13 | |
| Now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ | 31:16 | |
| and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit | 31:20 | |
| be with us now and evermore. | 31:25 | |
| (inspirational music) | 31:28 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 31:31 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 31:37 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 31:43 | |
| (church bells ringing) | 31:56 |