2026.05.16 - Reliance - An Eighty Year Peace

Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Because they did this evil, the Lord gave Eglon, King of Moab, power over Israel, getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him. Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the city of Palms. The Israelites were subject to Eglon, King of Moab for eighteen years. Again, the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer, Ahud, a left handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon, King of Moab. Now Ahud had made a double edged sword about a cubit long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He presented the tribute to Eglon, King of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ahud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way those who had carried it, But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal, he himself went back to Eglon, said, your majesty, I have a secret message for you. The king said to his attendants leave us, and they all left. Ahud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said, I have a message from God for you. As the king rose from his seat, Ahoud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh, and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in. After the blade and his bowels discharged, Ahud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Then Ahud went out to the porch. He shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said he must be relieving himself in the inner room of the palace. They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor dead. While they waited, Ahud got away. He passed by the stone images and escaped to Seyrah. When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down from him from the hills with him leading them follow me, he ordered, for the Lord has given Moab, your enemy into your hands, so they followed him down and took possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab. They allowed no one to cross over. At that time. They struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong. Not one escaped. That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years. Lord, we bless you, we praise you, and we are grateful, Lord for the time in which you have placed us. No matter what is going on around us, Lord, you are steadfast, You are true, You are holy, You are righteous, You are eternal. You will never change. You are the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. You are righteous. Jesus, You are King of kings and Lord of Lords. You are ruling and reigning. Everything is under your watchful eye. Holy Spirit, You are always with us. Help us, Lord, help us God to be the people who you have called us to be. Help us to fulfill the will that you want to see accomplished in our lives, each and every one of us. Lord, help us to understand, through the wisdom of your Holy Spirit and through your word that will last forever, what we are to do in the days ahead. God be with us redeem this time. Pour out a blessing upon your people. Bless the fathers and the mothers and the children. Bless everyone who is alone. Lord, you are a father to the fatherless. You are a comforter. You are our strong tower, You are our fortress. Lord. You are mighty, Lord, You are just. Lord. You are good. Lord. You are merciful and long suffering and full of love. Lord, help us to understand the joy and glory it brings to your name because of the forgiveness that you have accomplished for us through Christ and the Cross. God, let your will be established. Let your name be lifted high. Let a moment of clarity come to the people. Lord, would you give our land rest? Lord? We cry out to you. We cry out to you, knowing that we have fallen short in too many ways to count, in ways so vile that for many of us we don't even assume that there is forgiveness. But God, let your forgiveness triumph. Let mercy triumph over judgment. Lord, that is what you want. You want love over sacrifice. Lord. You have made the sacrifice for us so that we can be subject to your love and show your love to those around us. Help us, Lord, and the seas. We don't have the strength to accomplish what you have called us to accomplish. But you do, Lord, and you want to see your people delivered, to see freedom established, to see your name lifted high, to see the lips of your people glorify your great name, Jesus, So be with us now help us. God, We bless you, We praise you in Jesus' name. A bit of an unusual scripture from Judges three. But this is something that's been on my heart for a while. Many things have taken place since I've last spoken to this wonderful audience. And again I apologize for being derelict in my duty in speaking to you from this place and speaking to you of the things of God. We are expecting another boy in November. I am now the treasure of my church, and I'm just beginning that journey. And many things have happened in the world besides. But there's something that has been sitting on my heart. There is a cry that is raising up in my spirit, and it comes from the end of this sequence of scriptures. The land had peace for eighty years. Other versions say the land had rest for eighty years. The past eighty years have been a tumult. The past twenty years have been a tumult, the past ten years have been a tumult. The past eight months have been a tumult. And there's so much of a generalized cynicism. There's so much of a generalized uncertainty, whether it's about geopolity, whether it's about the economy, whether it's about technology. There's this undercurrent of distrust that we have seen here for a long time and that we have been sensitive to for a long time, and we've been expecting it to bubble to the surface. Think about how the Overton window has shifted in the last ten years as it pertains to perspectives that have been highlighted more recently with the Epstein situation. Think about how everyone is under the general apprehension that there is extensive corruption that goes up to the highest levels. And it doesn't really matter who you talk to about this. I think there is now a census that things are not as they should be. And of course you might say, well, obviously, duh. But these days there's been a really weird, kind of surreal move from some people burying their heads in the sand about many of the dynamics that we're alluding to here to a place where everyone having this same kind of cultural tacit acknowledgment of not just run of the mill garden variety corruption, but evil evil. And it's almost as if there is a shock value of it that's going to take some time for society to process in a way that clarifies into a position where people can move with collective action in a way that takes hold, that actually creates structural transformation. So why hasn't it happened yet? Why haven't we seen the things that we have been crying out for in terms of justice? Is it that people don't know? I think deep down almost everyone can say, yes, there is something dramatically wrong. And even if you haven't done as much research, even if someone is just sort of persisting on a steady diet of regular information, or even if someone is disconnected, there is this sense, there is this understanding underneath the surface that we are living in an epoch where secrets are being revealed and where the discomfort of realizing that our society is not what we have been told that it is is making its way gradually through the public consciousness. I think people have made the observation, Okay, so there is evil and it is perhaps in a position of significant power, but they haven't yet en mass come to the realization of what that means. And that can be difficult to think about. It can be something to shy away from. But when that facade, when there is this movement of the Overton window, where the last thing someone could say like it would be hopeless naive, hopelessly naive and even laughable for someone to say, oh, yeah, the people who are in charge universally have our best interests in mind. It's just it's just so patently and transparently false that it's not even a position that can be taken in polite society. Regardless of the surrounding set of opinions and perspectives, there is a general consensus of a kind of breakage that is at the foundation of the social contract that we have been a part of for so long. And the difference is people will continue to cling onto their perspectives about well, who deserves the blame for this, and that kind of finger pointing and blame casting ultimately is one of the things is preventing unified collective action from taking place. But note how difficult it is. Note how challenging it is psychologically and emotionally to realize that, for lack of a better phrase, there is another power ruling over you besides the one that you thought and imagine that you come to realize that it is in part because of your doing. Think about the beginning of the scripture that we read again. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and because they did this evil, the Lord gave Eglon, king of Moab, power over Israel. That is a troubling realization for any and all of us, that because we have squandered and abandoned and failed to hold firm, because we have relaxed in historical generations and pursued things that were not of ultimate value, rather instead focusing on our creature comforts and the ever heightened promising loop of breton Wood's reserve currency debt, escalating consumer prosperity, and technological supremacy. Maybe we miss the mark. I think it's getting pretty clear that that's the case, and has been cleared to this audience for some time. I'm preaching to the choir, as I know, But think about it. Think about how difficult it is to come to terms with the fact that we bear some responsibility. It is very easy to then say, okay, well, no, it was the prior generations who mess things up. Okay, And what the prior generations have come and gone or are going. And there is a current generation that is being raised up, a new generation that is coming even behind us, And so what will we do for their sake? Will we turn a blind eye to this? I dare say not? Now the troubling realization that by stealth, by a long march, by repeated moves and counter moves, and positioning and generalize patients, a society, an empire, a civilization becomes captured by what, how, who? The finer details of the story don't matter, even though they keep getting publicized and then end up sucking people in. The details don't matter. We have failed, in material respects to conduct ourselves the way that we should be conducting ourselves. We have failed to preserve and to protect what deserves to be preserved and protected, and we have committed evil. And as a result we have gone into captivity in a variety of different ways. Now again, the analogy is not perfect, but think of how difficult it is to realize that you're in captivity. To realize that it is your fault to a meaningful extent, and then to say, well, what should we do about it? You have to go through a pretty long cycle of denial and grief and bargaining before getting to acceptance. And maybe we're in the midst of that right now. As a society writ large, I think there's so much of a flywheel built around outrage that denial and anger are going to take up and have taken up for years and years and years, an awful lot of the mechanism here. But eventually, when you zoom out, these things have to give way. And what do they have to give way to? Not necessarily a vote or a move, or a tactic change or a strategy, but what was the catalyzing factor that led ultimately to the deliverance of the people of God? Again, the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer. Have we really, cumulatively, collectively en mass cried out to the Lord bemoaning the sin that has plagued our nation, bemoaning the sin that has plagued our hearts. Have we been truly contrite, truly repentant truly seeking the face of the Lord, knowing that there is no solution that we can architect, that there is only the power of God that is able to break the chains that have been put upon us from so many different directions. Now, when that time comes, when that day comes, I firmly believe that it is a when, and not an if. God will not go quietly into that good night, God ever goes quietly into anywhere in the sense of yielding up his people. Now many have certainly called, and potentially justly so, for judgment upon America in a grander capacity. And I wonder if the judgment has already come. I wonder if we've been living in that, in that captivity for a long time, and it's been harder and harder to see it, because the degree of captivity is in a variety of different ways, even more insidious. It is more of the brave New World type than the Babylonian type, although it's based on the same principles, it goes back to the same mechanics, it derives from the same spiritual forces. And so when we come to this we see immediately the Lord will provide a deliverer. Now in the picture that we have here. We know who the deliver is already. We know that it's Jesus, the Christ, our Messiah, our Savior, the one who made away, the one who holds the keys to sin, death, hell, and the grave, the one who conquered all of those things, the God who walked among us, laid down his life for us. We already have the deliverer, and yet we still won't cry out to him with the fervency that is demanded of this moment, because what is the end? What is the end of it? Peace? In this case, the land having peace for eighty years? Can you imagine what having peace for eighty years would look like? For many of us it would feel impossible. And this not just being a geopolitical piece, because we know that the kind of insidious capture that has been orchestrated took place in a time of relative geopolitical peace. Certainly, those living through the Cold War and the variety of different conflicts that have gone on would be able to shake their heads and say, well, what was truly peaceful about that? But in comparison to World War One and World War II and absolute planetary redefining conflicts, relative peace, relative stability, the packs Americana. These things were present to a real degree, But right now we're in a situation where where we go is anybody's guess, And at the end of the day, you could say something to the effect of, okay, well, if some people are predicting permanent utopia and other people are predicting immediate total annihilation or a fate worse than death at the hands of the kind of dystopic future that's even impossible to really imagine, then history says the truth is probably somewhere in between and slightly more boring than the clickbaity outcomes. But there is no ruling any of these things out anymore. There never was, and certainly not now, especially when we keep the technological angle in mind. People are making all sorts of claims, and you can sort of wave your hand and dismiss it as more marketing or other things like that, But there is real truth to the movement that the world is going through, especially to the point where we see so many things day to day that would be headline and front page and dramatic news and full story cycles, and it would captivate things for weeks and months, and now it's just over and gone. It's this kind of mailstrom that we just don't have the bandwidth to actually capture, to actually sort of wrap our minds around. And that's no surprise, it's no surprise. It is part and parcel of the times in which we live that are unprecedented in many ways in terms of the mechanisms of the problems that present themselves to us, but in other ways are simply carbon copys of the repeats of the cycle of sin and captivity that have held people in the balance, not just for generations, but for centuries and millennia. And so what do we what do we see, what do we do? What happens next? Well, one of the things that you can recall from this, you know, relatively relatively crude passage of scripture, if I may, is that the kind of deliverance that God provides is not always clean. Sometimes it's a little messy. And the point here is not that any of the individual behaviors should be emulated. You know, there isn't anything that can be that can be done in that kind of in that kind of a way. But it's a very unique story of ahood, about the solo nature of it, about the just strange, almost soap opera cinematic quality to it. It's very unusual. It stands out, and I think that apart from simply being the recalling of a true episode of history where the truth is often stranger than fiction, I think it indicates to us that there is no just wiping away in a completely clean way. There is a mess. There's a mess that has gone on, and the breaking of chains is not always a clean business. It's difficult, it's challenging, it's messy, and so too is the deliverance that the Lord wants to pour out. But it has to be done in proper order. It has to be done according to the Bible and the principles of God, and it has to come from a place of God's people saying that we have failed in our obligations, that we have fallen short of what has been demanded of us, and that we need God's help, and that we believe that the power of God will allow us, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, to have love in our hearts, even for our enemies. It is one of those things that cannot be done outside of the supernatural grace of God, especially in a time like this, when there's even greater visibility into the evil nature of power, structures, of dynamics, of just horrendous things. That is, it just goes beyond the pale even to talk about, which is one of the reasons why it can stay in place. It's just so difficult, so uncomfortable, so challenging to even engage with. Like if you have a conversation with someone about what's going on, and then you return to your day to day, or you go back to knock something off your to do list, or you know, you go back and spend time with your fans, just it all feels so surreal and disconnected and liminal, and it's it creates this kind of torsion, this kind of sheer, this kind of stretching and tearing force in our consciousness where the center just can't hold. It's like there is no integrated structure that will allow us to pass an action from one mode to the other. It's like it demands to be buried. It demands to be put down and pushed back and removed just for the sake of our own sanity. It's almost as if being in captivity to evil is a type of mass psychosis along the order of dissociative identity disorder, where we know that something's wrong, and yet the stamina, the willpower, the action that would be necessary in order to do anything about it is just so gargantuan that it is seemingly insurmountable. But nothing is impossible for God. And note that even when Ahud had slain the king of Moab, that wasn't the end of the story. It wasn't okay, yep, the deliverance is done. The people had to actually go out and occupy the people had to go out and take possession. That people had to go out and defend this territory. But when they did, when they did, the land had peace for eighty years. My children, who are six and a half, five, two and a half and negative a half are going to grow up and enter a world that is impossible to describe and impossible to predict. There is no stability, even as I, as a father, try to provide them with that first almost in the Lord, but also through all of the blessings and opportunities. I have to spend time with them and to establish those values and to point them in the right direction. But what if there was a legacy of peace that we could leave for our children. What if they didn't have to bear the burden of this cognitive dissonance and this knowledge of the grandiosity and grotesque nature of the persistent evil that is present in our world. What if it wasn't like that? What if there was the kind of revival that would allow the Holy Spirit to move in collective action. What if there was a way to achieve peace, not just a truce, not just a compromise, not just a bargain with evil to be let alone. Because that never works, never has, never will not from the beginning of time up through the final peace treaty signed with the Antichrist. There is no quarter with evil in that way. That is not true peace. But is there a way? I don't know of one. If someone has a plan, great, But I have a sneaking suspicion that what we're dealing with is so cosmic in nature, is so ancient in scope, is so beyond the pale think of what is actually going on that we don't even know about that There isn't a set of blueprints. You can't type it into your large language model of choice and get the blueprint and then distribute it and then see everything go according to plan. That's just not how this is going to work. It is God, and only God who is able to free, who is able to redeem, who is able to restore, who is able to break the chains. It looks impossible, but only God can do it. And when we acknowledge the impossibility of the burden that is in front of us to not turn over a legacy of a completely obliterated world, a world shot through and suffused with evil on our children, can't we find it in ourselves to really cry out? Can't we humble ourselves and fast and pray and seek the Lord on this? Can't we declare that we don't have what it takes. Can't we understand that even as God's mercy, God's grace, God's love, God's spirit are poured out, it's going to require us to stand in the gap and continue to persevere. Don't we know that it's not something that's going to be handed to us on a silver platter, but that God wants us to fight these battles in the spiritual and in the supernatural. Don't we understand how difficult it is to stand firm even when we know that it's the Lord's doing and that he'll get all the glory. Don't we know that all throughout scripture, when the Lord calls deliverance into place, whether through Ahud, whether through Gidey, and whether through Christ himself, that other people have been called to come alongside to fight those battles, And there were real battles. Don't we know that there's nothing we can do apart from the grace and the mercy of God. Don't we know that his long suffering has been stretched? Won't we even if it's not for our own sake, but for the sake of our children, And if you don't have children, for the sake of the children writ large, for the sake of the next generation, who from cradle to grave has an agenda of complete and total poisoning set up against them, who is increasingly and flagrantly in touch with and in modes and in places where evil can get a grasp on them, no matter how much we want to protect them. Evil is everywhere. The creation is groaning to see the revelation of the sons of God. Our kids not worth crying out to the Lord? Is the Lord himself not worthy of it? Will we finally come to grips with our situation and with ourselves. To say, Lord, there are many things that have happened, There are many scenarios that have played out, but sin has empowered darkness. Would we, like Daniel, cry out for the whole nation and for ourselves? Would we surrender ourselves to the will of God? Would we take the right kind of action? Would we shake off these shackles of apathy and inactivity? Would we finally just grow up and put away childish things? When will it happen? Lord? When will it happen? First and foremost necessary condition surrender. Surrender an acknowledgement of futility. An acknowledgment of futility in this case is the most freeing thing that you can do, to say that you are powerless and to go to the Lord with it, the source of all power. When I am weak, he is strong. It is his power, his glory, his might, his holiness that will establish His will. Will not be our doing, not this time, And it never was, It never was. There's so many failings. And I think, in particular here because of the work I do with students, I understand the qualms and the concerns and the considerations about the job market, and AI and all the different levels of competition and the challenges. I understand it from all angles. From the student's perspective, I understand that you're looking at a word and you're saying, well, how am I ever going to be able to afford anything? How am I ever going to be able to get ahead or you know, even get back to square one after getting a degree? And how am I supposed to feel when I apply to all these different jobs and you know, I drop my resume and I have these conversations and nobody ever gets back to me. I just get ghosted by people, people in my life, people in the professional sphere, et cetera, et cetera. That hurts. We experience that as rejection and rejection is one of the most challenging emotions to handle. It's one of the most difficult situations that we can face, even if it seems small. There's no such thing as a small rejection. Rejection is the kind of drop that can echo in our heart for the entirety of our lives. It's something our brain holds on too, because it experiences it as a betrayal. Injection is everywhere everywhere you look. But I also understand it from the employer's perspective, because people don't have the skill sets. They just simply don't. People can't read, people can't write, people have no quantitative sense, people don't know how to communicate. There's all this lack so that there's still opportunities for people who actually can operate. It doesn't take as much as we think. It doesn't take as much as you might imagine. But again, I can see it from both sides. There's grievances everywhere, and where there is this grievance, where there is this futility, we have to have a sense of the end of the road in order to know what we're fighting for. And if you told me that there's a scriptural press for a deliverance that leads to an eighty year piece, an eighty year true piece, I would tell you that that's something that is really it's hard for me to imagine. In fact, it might be impossible for me to imagine. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what the world looks like unencumbered by the type of drastically over the top, horrific and heinous evil structures that have done their level best to destroy people and the works of God and the Earth and have held on to the rungs of power, gripping, desperate, conniving, scheming. I don't know what this world looks like. If those things are not in place, an account argument will something else will just take their place, and it'll be more of the same all over again. Just try, just try for a moment to even picture it. What would it look like if there were eighty years not just of surface level geopolitical peace, but genuine peace and harmony. And for us, in so many ways, this it just seems so impossible. But why Why is this impossible? It's impossible for us, but is it truly impossible for God? Is it truly impossible for God? For our children to inherit a world where they have an opportunity to walk out the great commission to follow God, to obey his calling without the encumbrance and the baggage of blood drenched evil having stricken our society for so long and infected almost every single area of it. I'm not saying that that is the future, that we deserve this kind of liberation, but can we imagine a world where that's even possible for so many of us? The answer to that is no. We can't imagine it because it seems impossible. This is all we've ever known, and to me, I understand that it's fair. I don't know what it looks like. I don't have a secret prophetic revelation of what's gonna happen. All I know is that if I had the choice, even if at the end of those eighty years, I know the cycle would repeat itself. If I had a choice, and I could hand my children this world or I could hand them one in which the land has peace for eighty years, in a genuine way, I would choose the version where the and has peace for eighty years in a genuine way. Would any one of you do differently. It's not a choice. To me. It feels like an obligation not to believe naively and some pie in the sky dream, Not to attach myself to some false promise necessarily given by somebody who wants to attain power themselves, Not to get sucked in to the various kinds of games back and forth, but to put my faith steadfastly and wholeheartedly in the God of the universe, who wants to see his people liberated, who has promised that the Great commission will be fulfilled. And who wants to see evil vanquished and his love poured out? He wants desperately to transform people from image to image and from glory to glory. It brings him glory to forgive, to set free, to transform, to establish this peace. Does not the word of God say about the Prince of Peace that the increase of his government and peace will be without end? Brothers, sisters, we need to knock, We need to seek. It brings God no joy to see the evil that sin has enabled run rampant. Jesus came to defeat the works of the kingdom of darkness. Why can't we cry out to God? Why can't we seek in a genuine way his kingdom, Your kingdom, Come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Do we mean that? Do we seriously apprehend what that calls for? Or do we have it in ourselves to grapple with these things, to acknowledge the futility of our own structures and our own planning, to go before God and to say, Father, only you can accomplish this. And do we have it in our heart to have faith that God can and will do the impossible thing? And establish peace. I think it is so difficult for us because we can't even imagine what it looks like. We've been in captivity for so long that we can't even imagine what not being in that place would look like. And we see the world going all sorts of different crazy directions, and it's tempting and easy to say, well, let's just throw up our hands and kind of enjoy the ride, because so much of it is out of our control. It was all always out of our control. When was it ever in our control. I can't even control my own self, let alone the world that's going on around me. It was never in my control. But what is in my control is the volitional will that I have to acknowledge, the futility of my own strength to go to God seeking his face and to have the hope, not just saying, oh, well, this is all done, so I'm going to hope in the next world. Great. It's it's an absolute bless It's called the blessed hope for a reason, the blessed hope of eternity. And I am so grateful to God for that, So grateful to God. Will we stretch any further when Jesus returned to his hometown. He couldn't do many miracles there. Why because the people didn't have faith? Did he not want to do the miracles there? Was it the lack of faith that shut that out? Have we closed the door on a possibility because we refuse to even entertain it? The possibility of peace itself, the very thing that God wants to establish, whether it's because of an eschatological system or any other such justification. Why why throw that possibility away? I refuse, I will not, I will not lay that down. I don't know what it would look like for the land to have peace for eighty years in a genuine way, But boy, would I love to find that out, more so than where we're going, wouldn't you? It seems like the most no brainer of all no brainers? So why can't we just say, God, our efforts are futile. Look at what's going on? Lord, forgive us, Lord, have mercy on us. Lord. Will you do something impossible? Will you do something that only you can do? Will you show your power as a testimony to this generation? Will you establish peace in our land, a genuine, lasting peace? Lord? Will you just strip ups of the chains and the sin and the structures and everything else that just keeps your people in so much bondage in so many different ways, some overt, some covert, some blatant, some extraordinarily subtle. Lord, would you win a victory that echoes through all eternity? Lord, You've already won the victory for us in Jesus? What is it to you? Will it deplete your power even one bit to show forth this generation, to show yourself mighty, to raise up your name like a banner, to be seen as the mighty god you are. There is no extra effort that you have to put forth. One word from you and it's done, fixed, settled, established. You are the Alpha and the omega. There is none like you. You are the only one, the only one who can do it. But we get to the point of futility where we can go to the Lord in that way and allow him to give us that kind of hope, that kind of faith, the kind of faith that can move mountains, not for our own glory, but for his. I know it's hard to think about, but what would it look like if the land had peace for eighty years? Not just a daydream, not just a pipe dream, not just some whimsical flight of fancy, not something that we ascribe to our own do or some fantastical action. But what would happen if God establishes peace? And yes, we can say that that will be here in the millennial Kingdom. We can go in that direction and praise God for that day. But doesn't the Bible also say woe to you who desire the day of the Lord in a typeological sense, because that's not a day that is without the kind of wrath that none of us can fathom. Shouldn't we mustn't we pray for peace, and not just a false newspaper headline piece, but a peace that comes from God, a revival that comes from the throne of Heaven. Will we not do these things? Will we not cry out to Him? Or will we allowed the Holy Spirit to stir up the kind of faith in God, who is unstoppable, who is unshakable. Will we allow the Holy Spirit to stir up that kind of faith in us? Lord? Would you do a work that only you can do? Would you help us? God? Just give us an understanding, give us even a small fraction, give us something to cling onto of what it would look like for our land to have peace? For eighty years. A peace that comes from you, What would it look like, Lord, Help us to understand that that hope, that faith is worth crying out to you, Worth admitting our shortcomings, worth acknowledging our futility, worth any effort that we can provide, worth a project for a legacy for our children. Lord. It has to be the kind of revival that moves mountains in a way that we can't even fathom. Help us, Lord, it's so hard for us. It's so hard for us to even picture it, because of the way that the evil of this world has distorted and contorted our modality of thinking and even what kind of things are possible. Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Help our unbelief. Lord, Lord, the faith that we have comes from you, Holy Spirit. Give us more faith, Give us a greater understanding of who you are. Give us a greater understanding of your will. Give us the ability, Lord, the desire to cry out to you, a hunger and a thirst for your righteousness that doesn't take anything into our own hands, but that brings everything to your cross. Jesus, you died for us, You died for the sake of our children. You died to make a way back to the Father you died for the generations who you see even now, who are yet to be raised up. God, God, God Almighty, do a work that only you can do. Would you bring about peace for our land? For eighty years You've done it before, You've done it before. Will you do it again in our day? And will you move in our hearts to continue to repent and to press into you God, only you can do this thing for the glory of your magnificent name. Jesus, you are holy. Thank you. We repent. Lord. We have fallen short. We have taken things into our own hands. We have failed to believe. We have failed even to be curious about what you want to do in this generation. We have made assumption after assumption. We have fallen victim to the predatory practices of evil that has waged war on us physically, mentally, spiritually, psychologically, on every single different dimension. It has been a total war through our entire lives. But God, will you bring about peace? Will you do what only you can do for the glory of your great name. Thank you, Jesus, Thank you Father, Thank you Holy Spirit. Be with us. Lord. In your name, we pray Amen.