Lord, we thank You for the Church that is the body of Christ. It is in the Church that we find God. It is the Church that baptizes us. It is the Church that marries us. It is the Church that buries us. In her we find those who hold the keys of the Kingdom as they use the word of God. In her we hear about Christ from Lord's Day to Lord's Day. In her we find rebuke when we need rebuke and we find encouragement when we need encouragement. Kingdoms on earth rise and fall. Nations are born and nations die. Yet the Church marches on without interruption. She may be sore oppressed. She may be wounded by sin. She may reflect the weakness of her people, but she shall victoriously march on in her war even after we are gone. She is the wall that protects us from wild beasts. She is the rock that keeps us from sinking. She is the strong arm that lifts us up when we have fallen.

Lord, give us the gift of showing hospitality to strangers. May we never neglect to show mercy to the alien and to comfort the widow. Let us not forget that apart from thy grace, we would be the alien and we would be the widow. O how the Lord loves those who will show mercy, for they themselves shall receive mercy.

May we welcome sinners into the Church, lead them to repentance, and welcome them to the family of God. It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick.

Lord, help us to make sure that our character is free from the love of money, being content with what we have, for it is God Himself who said that He will never leave us nor forsake us. When men cheat, the burden of their sins we all reap. When men steal, the disease of dishonesty we all feel. Sin is piled upon sin. Men scheme and build deception upon deception. They become liars who live a life of fraud. They build a tower like Babel thinking that they shall escape when it falls. Lord, we live in a nation of takers and not givers. We live in an empire that rewards the thief and punishes the honest man. We take from the rich and we give to the poor. We sell broken cisterns and we call it wisdom. We manipulate the greed of the covetous and put them in a prison of woe. We build upon quicksand and we call it solid ground. We take our ill-gotten gains and we disappear like the bird in the night.

Lord, where are the prophets of our day? Have You taken away the voice of the man of God? Have You muzzled the mouth of the sage so that we will no longer hear the word of God? Will the silence of the wise man be the death of us all? Will the few men who know the truth be taken away from us and we be left with only the wisdom of fools? Lord, it's not the earthquake we fear, it's the slow work of the worm that works at night that is our greatest danger. It's while men slept that the enemy sowed his seed. It's not the man who shouts in the street who will kill us. It is the man who plots and plunders in the dark that will destroy our hopes and our dreams. Few men can see the truth and the Church today is in darkness. Men die in their sins while we are watching the circus. Men steal our freedom and we are feeding our souls with waste and rubbish.

Lord, who shall deliver the righteous man? To what place shall the good man flee? Do not let us lose hope. Do not let us slip into despair. Let not the darkness of gloom capture our minds. Help us to remember that You are sovereign. If it is time to clean house, let it begin with the house of God. It we face calamity, let us not forget that the Lord sends both the harvest and the famine. The Lord sends both the rain and the draught. The Lord sends both the good and the ill. Let us never forget that the Lord can bring the dead to life. Let us never forget that our God can change the rock into gold. Help us through our despair. Help us through our misery. There are great benefits to misery, if we but look for them. A wise man knows that sorrow is better than laughter and a house of mourning better than a house of feasting. O Lord, where is the wise man of our day?