In the sermon 'Clash of Kingdoms' by Peter Allison, the trial of Paul before Felix in Acts 24 is explored. Paul is accused by Tertullus, an orator representing the Jewish high priest Ananias and the elders, of being a creator of dissension and a leader of the Nazarenes. Tertullus uses flattery and rhetorical techniques to portray Paul as a pest and a threat to the Pax Romana. However, Paul's defense highlights his adherence to the Jewish faith and belief in the resurrection. The sermon emphasizes the contrast between the spiritual kingdom of Christ that Paul represents and the earthly kingdom of Caesar upheld by Felix. Despite the accusations and imprisonment, the sermon notes that God's providence is at work, protecting Paul and allowing him to fulfill his mission of spreading the Gospel to Gentiles, Jews, and kings. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to trust in God's sovereign plan, even in difficult circumstances.

Acts 24, our passage for consideration today. Paul has been whisked away from Jerusalem and the mob that wanted to kill him. He's been delivered from a fight in the Sanhedrin and escorted by a very large armed Roman cohort to Caesarea. And we now begin in chapter 24 with his trial there before Felix. Now after five days, Ananias the high priest came down with the elders and a certain orator named Tertullus.

These gave evidence to the governor against Paul. And when he was called upon, Tertullus began his accusation, saying, Seeing that through you we enjoy great peace and prosperity is being brought to this nation by your foresight. We accept it always and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness. Nevertheless, not to be tedious to you any further, I beg you to hear by your courtesy a few words from us. For we have found this man a plague, a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

He even tried to profane the temple and we seized him and wanted to judge him according to our law. But the commander Lysias came by and with great violence took him out of our hands commanding his accusers to come to you. By examining him yourself you may ascertain all these things of which we accuse him." And the Jews also assented, maintaining that these things were so. Then Paul, after the governor had nodded to him to speak, answered, "'Inasmuch as I know that you have been for many years a judge of this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself, because you may ascertain, that it is no more than twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem to worship. And they neither found me in the temple, disputing with anyone, nor inciting the crowd, either in the synagogues or in the city.

Nor can they prove the things of which they now accuse me. But this I confess to you, that according to the way, which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets. I have hope in God which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men. Now after many years I came to bring alms and offerings to my nation in the midst of which some Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with a mob nor with tumult.

They ought to have been here before you to object if they have anything, had anything against me. Or else that those who are here themselves say if they found any wrongdoing in me while I stood before the council. Unless it is for this one statement which I cried out standing among them, concerning the resurrection of the dead, I am being judged by you this day but when Felix heard these things having more accurate knowledge of the way he adjourned the proceedings and said when Lysias the commander comes down I will make a decision on your case." So he commanded the centurion to keep Paul and to let him have liberty, and told him not to forbid any of his friends to provide for or visit him. And after some days when Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, Go away for now.

When I have a convenient time, I will call for you. Meanwhile, he also hoped that money would be given him by Paul that he might release him. Therefore he sent for him more often and conversed with him. But after two years, Portius Festus succeeded Felix, and Felix wanting to do the Jews a favor, left Paul bound. The Lord rejects all those who stray from His statutes for their deceit and falsehood.

Heavenly Father, may this word that we have heard be mixed with faith. May you strengthen our obedience, equip us as Your servants through Your word today. Feed us and nourish us, we ask. And I pray that you would sanctify my sinful lips, that they may proclaim the riches of your grace, and you would preserve me from error. In Jesus' name, amen.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, you'll remember that shortly before Jesus ascended to heaven to sit at the throne at the right hand of the Father, He declared to His disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples." First, He sent them to Jerusalem and then Judea and Samaria, and finally they were to go to the ends of the earth. And so the whole book of Acts is the record of the first 30 years of that commission. The first 30 years of the Apostles carrying out that commission that Jesus Christ gave Him.

And Paul's ministry as the apostle who was born out of due time because he was the last eyewitness of Christ's resurrection, he occupies the entire last half, actually slightly more than the last half of this historical record. And Paul's specific commission, you remember in Acts 9, about verse 15, was to bear Christ's name before Gentiles, Kings, and the children of Israel. Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. So these last five chapters of Acts record Paul's ministry before kings. He has spent the last 24 years or so of his life bringing the Gospel to the Jews and to the Gentiles.

And now in these last years of his life, he's going to bring it to kings and so complete the ministry that God gave him, this third leg of His three-fold commission. The Jews, the Gentiles, and kings. And so I've titled this court trial The Clash of Kingdoms, because that is the big picture of what is happening here. Paul, as the ambassador of Jesus Christ, as His herald, His messenger, is representing Jesus Christ to Felix and every other Roman ruler before whom He will appear. He is proclaiming Christ's message of salvation, Christ's victory over sin and death, Christ's crown rights over every earthly king.

Christ's eternal kingdom. Christ's present reign. He is pressing Christ's kingdom forward in these last five chapters, especially at this trial. Felix, on the other hand, is the representative of Caesar. He is upholding Caesar's authority and Caesar's reign and Caesar's justice.

He has a commission. His job is to maintain the Pax Romana. And Tertullus of course represents the Sadducees who are very closely aligned with the Rome. And they were on Rome's side in the persecution of Christians. In fact, they initiated the persecution.

They're the ones that brought the Romans into it. Now Paul's weapons in this clash of kingdoms are not carnal. They're not made of steel or leather. But they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds and casting down arguments, which is what he's going to face today. And every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Felix's weapons on the other hand are carnal. They are Roman legionnaires, swords, spears, bars, chains. Those are the weapons with which he is seeking to maintain and uphold Caesar's reign and enforce Caesar's authority. Paul's weapon is the truth. He wields the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

Tertullus' weapon is primarily lies and slanders. Now it might seem that Tertullus and Felix have the upper hand here with Paul being the prisoner and under their control. But of course as we know, they don't really have the upper hand at all the Roman Empire would be completely transformed and brought under the dominion of Jesus Christ Where he is named as the Lord in the next 250 years in fact the Roman a Roman Empire would convene one of the first ecumenical councils of the Christian church. And out of that council would come a creed that we still profess today. The Roman Empire would pass away, but Christ's kingdom is still advancing all around the world.

So Paul then, in this trial, is advancing Christ's kingdom. He is representing Christ's crown rights. Let's look first at Tertullus' speech. That's what opens this passage. In the beginning of the passage.

So five days after Paul is brought there, This Ananias, the high priest, comes down with some elders who would probably be Sadducees or at least people that he could trust. Remember the Sanhedrin had Sadducees and Pharisees. It was dominated by the Sadducees, but they were the minority party. So he's brought some elders that he has in his pocket that may have been the people that had vowed to kill Paul, doesn't say, but they're his support. And so Tertullus, they've also brought this orator named Tertullus.

Now he's an orator, not a legal expert. The Romans used orators to bring their case in court. His job was to spin the case before the judge. His job was to wow the judge with his rhetoric. His speech is then rhetoric.

It's designed to be rhetorically powerful, but not necessarily truthful. And you know there's a difference. The media is very good at rhetoric and putting people on the defensive. Rhetoric is a powerful weapon. It's a weapon of the flesh, but it is a powerful weapon, but it's not necessarily the truth.

And so there are a lot of rhetorically effective arguments that people raise that aren't necessarily true. If you actually watched the interview with Senator Cruz recently, there's a good example of people using rhetorical arguments that weren't really relevant or truthful. But they can be effective. And so, Tullus' speech here actually follows a well-established rhetorical outline for speeches in general. And A courtroom speech to a judge was a common place where formal rhetoric was employed or used.

And so Tertullus' speech follows the common rules for rhetoric. It opens with an exordium in verses 2-4. And in classical rhetoric, that's the beginning part of an argument in which the speaker tries to establish credibility of himself, and credibility of his case, and where he would announce the subject and the purpose of what he wants to say. And then there's the second part is this narratio, which follows this exhortium or the opening, and it gives a background information. It relates the events that have occurred which provide the occasion for the speech and it also wants to encapsulate the charges that are going to be brought.

And that's in the next verses 5 to 7, actually to 8A. And then finally he closes with what's called the Peroratio. The Peroratio. Which is, in which he asserts his truthfulness and invites the governor to investigate the case directly. So he opens with this opening statement, and its purpose is to capture the audience, to secure their goodwill, to sort of win Felix's favor.

Because in this case, Felix, the audience, is the judge. And so Tertullus uses flattery to secure Felix's goodwill toward Himself. And by association then toward His clients, the Ananias and these elders, the Sadducees. And this whole introduction actually uses very typical language for rhetorical introductions in that day. The Greek terms great, through you, and peace, and foresight.

Great, through you, peace, foresight. Four words that he used there, four phrases, are very common terms used in honorary inscriptions and speeches before judges and kings. They're found in honorary inscriptions that the archaeologists have found. And the Pax Romana was central to Caesar's honor. And a governor who failed to keep peace in his region would be very poorly regarded.

And so justice and enforcement of this peace, enforcement of the law, these were priorities for Roman rulers. The problem with Tertullus' flattery is that it's all lies. It was insincere praise to attempt to gratify the self-love and the vanity of Felix. It's one thing to commend and to thank somebody for something they have done. That's good.

We ought to do that. Scriptures teach us to do that. But none of Tertullus' praise or thanks is true at all. Felix didn't bring great peace. He didn't bring any peace.

Tacitus says that he fostered crime by his misconceived remedies to problems. He brought the region to the brink of war over conflict between Samaria where he ruled and Galilee where his colleague ruled. Antacidus says the province would have been ablaze with war, but for the intervention of Quadratus, the governor of Syria. So Felix is incompetent and his meddling made things worse. Felix was actually a former slave who was freed through the influence of his brother, Pallas, who had come into the good graces of Claudius the Emperor of Rome.

Tacitus says that Felix practiced every kind of cruelty and lust, wielding the power of a king with the instincts of a slave. Drusilla, who's mentioned in the text that we read, was his second of three wives. And he convinced or seduced her to leave her husband and marry him. Now, just for context, she is the sister to Herod Agrippa and Bernice that we'll see in the next chapter, the next couple chapters. She's the daughter of the Herod that killed the Apostle James early in Acts.

And she's the granddaughter, sorry, the great granddaughter of Herod the Great, who killed all the babies in Bethlehem. She, Drusilla, along with her son, died in Pompeii, actually, at the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Excavations of that city have revealed an exceedingly immoral city, so much so that the art was deemed so pornographic that it was locked away in a secret part of the museum. And it was only open for general viewing in the late 2000s. And Even today, minors are only allowed into this museum, but with a guardian or a written consent.

So Pompeii was not exactly a place of virtue. And I think that is a comment about her. So Felix then is not a competent ruler. He didn't bring peace, and he was the opposite of noble, being obviously quite immoral. But Tertullus has a purpose for all these lies.

They want to set up and connect the charges that he wants to bring. See, he flatters Felix as one who keeps the peace as preparation for accusing Paul of disturbing the peace, the peace that Felix presumably had worked so hard to achieve, and so therefore would want to prosecute or punish Paul for ruining his peace. After his opening, his opening flattery, Tertullus addresses Felix as The most noble Felix. And this is a very standard form of address for an equestrian, which Felix was not, he was of course a freed slave, or it was for a governor. Governors normally would have been equestrians, and sometimes from the senatorial cast.

And so, but this is a common term, most noble Felix. Luke uses this when addressing Theophilus at the beginning of Luke. Claudius used it in his letter to Felix. And Paul uses it when he addresses Festus later. He uses this title.

So this is a standard title, much like you would address a judge as Your Honor. The phrase, always and in all places, there in the other part of His address in verse 3, always and in all places, or in every way and everywhere as it's translated in most translations, provides a very appealing alliteration in Greek. And according to some commentators, this was a common phrase that's seen in other legal petitions of that time. And in other words, it has a catchy sound in Greek, it has an alliteration. Then in verse 4, Tertullus promises brevity, brevity in his talk and requests on the basis of Felix's favor for him to listen to his argument.

And this also is a standard in that day and even today. In many places it's customary for lawyers to address a judge with may it please the court. In fact, in the United States Supreme Court, it has now become mandatory to say, as your opening line to address the court, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court. So this would be a very standard phrase then that Luke records here, Tertullus is bringing.

And one of the things that's interesting and very, would be expected, but There's a lot of these things have records. This trial has legal records. There would have been careful records kept by the Romans of this trial. So historians would have had access. We know a lot about the circumstances of this trial and of how trials were conducted in general in that day because we have records of that.

And what shines through is just how accurate and precise of a historian Luke is in all of his accounts. Wherever we have the ability to compare it with other records of the day, Luke is always very accurate. Sometimes more accurate than we even know. And it's only later that we'll realize just how accurate and precise he was in terms of something else turning up that establishes what he said that people may have thought was questionable, turns out he's exactly right. And so this is what comes through here in this detailed recording of Tertullus' argument.

He's very accurate, he's historically very accurate as to what would have typically happened in a trial. So then Tertullus then in verses 5-8 begins his narration of the facts and charges. And just like his opening, his exhortium, the facts and charges that he presents are also riddled with lies and unfabrications. But like all effective liars, and I wouldn't call them good liars, but effective liars, there has to be enough truth in the lie mixed in with the falsehood to make it believable and effective. And that's the case here as well.

His first charge in verse 5 is that Paul was a pest. And there's a reason for that charge. A person's general character was a basis by which cases were often decided. It was one of the big factors that juries and judges used in deciding cases. And so it was very common in forensic or legal oratory to attack the overall character of the defendant and paint their wickedness with very big, broad brushstrokes, claiming that things like, well, they could best only offer samples of their heinous crimes.

Or The prosecutor of Eratosthenes claimed his problem was not knowing where to begin, but in knowing where to end his accusations, because there were so many. Another prosecutor warned everyone that actually listing all his crimes would take too long and squander everyone's time, so he would have to be content with just a few. I mean, those are just some of the common tactics that these orators would use to bring the charges. Exaggeration was also common, with one defendant complaining that the accuser had gone beyond all others in his shamelessness. Prosecutors commonly invented, not only did they exaggerate the charge, but they would just invent charges wholesale, out of whole cloth, as we say.

They would attack relatives and friends, and they used every deceptive and false pretense that they could get away with. For example, one prosecutor accused the defendant of burning the Acropolis. And when it was pointed out to him that the Acropolis had not been burned, then he said, well, the offense was stealing from the Treasury. And when it was further pointed out to him that the Treasury had not been robbed, then he said, well, it would be robbed. Just an example of the wholesale fabrication of evidence that was common in this day in these kind of trials.

And so Tertullus is fitting right into the way legal cases were conducted in his day. And this is really not all that far removed from the situation in our courts today. On October 7, 2016, in Pasadena, California, Pansy Lynn, an attorney, argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that her clients, three CPS case workers, had sovereign immunity and could not be prosecuted for perjuring themselves by bringing false testimony, fabricating false evidence, and suborning false witnesses in order to secure the removal of a child from her parents. And thankfully, even the Ninth Circuit, which you know is not a repute doesn't have a reputation for being a conservative court even even the judge there was just shocked he said he said he was he was amped up as he said, that this lawyer would have the temerity to say that her clients could suborn false witnesses, fabricate false evidence in order to take a child from her parents. FISA courts routinely convict people without presentation of any evidence on the basis of perjured testimony of state agents.

You know, the case of Susan Lindauer right here in Texas was prosecuted in a court, but they couldn't bring any evidence. They say, we just have it, but we can't show it to you because of national security. But she's guilty of treason. And so she was put in, they wanted to force drug her. So this kind of stuff is not just limited to pagan Rome, it's rampant in our culture today.

In fact, one lawyer here in Texas wrote a book recently after her experience in the Enron case, and she called it, of all things, license to lie. License to lie. Meaning attorneys and judges with their licenses to practice law were so given to lies and fabrication of evidence that her whole book was called License to Lie. It's a shameful account of exactly what Tertullus is doing, but it's in our country. Tertullus derogatorily refers to Paul as this man.

Someone whose character is so shameful that his name couldn't even be mentioned. This man, Tertullus said, was a pest. That word means pestilence. To use it of Paul is to say that he's a public menace. Worse than a vagabond who contributes nothing, this is saying he's dangerous.

He's a menace to society. He has to be eliminated. See, this is his attempt to broadly smear Paul's overall character. His second charge of dissension is the most dangerous in the Roman world. Dissension is I think too weak of a translation here.

The word refers to sedition, an uprising, a revolt, a rebellion. The Geneva Translate said a mover of sedition. A number of translations have it stirs up riots. And the ESV says a mover of seditions. This is a very serious charge in Roman days.

The Roman rulers took any attempt to overthrow Caesar or rebel against Caesar, they took that very, very seriously and punished it very severely. This is why Barabbas was in prison, his sedition. And while there is no truth in that statement, it sort of has an appearance of truth. Paul had impacted a number of Jewish communities around the Eastern Mediterranean, except for Egypt. There had been a number of physical confrontations and public outbursts over Paul's preaching.

Paul had to flee Damascus, remember? He had Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Berea. He had to flee those because of Jewish agitation in the crowds. Paul actually had to flee from Berea without exoneration of the court, something he did get at Philippi. And most of these were Jews agitating.

Now there was also a riot in Ephesus, if you remember a few chapters earlier. It was large enough that the rulers were concerned they'd be called on the carpet to account for this disruption of the peace. There was a riot in Jerusalem over Paul that necessitated Lysias, the cohort, bringing out the Roman army to quell the violence. But of course, Paul wasn't the instigator of these. And they would have a very hard time proving, even proving Paul's connection to them, let alone his being the instigator of them.

There's really great irony though in this charge in that Claudius, you remember, had banned the Jews from Rome. He kicked them all out because they were a public menace. They were a nuisance. They were always causing riots. And so here Paul is being accused of being a pest or a disturber of the peace by the very Jews who were the ones who were actually disrupting the peace and had a history of disrupting the peace Thirdly Turtullus accuses Paul being a ringleader of the Nazarenes.

Now this could be used pejoratively. You know, Andrew the disciples said, can anything good come out of Nazareth? There was a sense in which that was pejorative. But it was also an early name for the followers of the Way. And both Tertullian and Eusebius, early church writers, recognized this as a first century name for Christians, Nazarenes.

And so in the early days, Rome regarded Christianity as simply a sect within Judaism. And Judaism was highly respected. So by calling in some ways, by calling Paul a leader of the sect of the Nazarenes, Tertullius is trying to force Paul to defend all of the Jewish, Judean Jewish movements. Because ring leaders would be responsible for the actions of those they led. And so while he saw it as an obstacle that Paul would have to overcome and defend himself against, actually I think this is what Paul would have wanted because Paul identified himself as a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee.

And Paul would have argued that his understanding was the right one, and that Jesus was the Messiah that the Jews were waiting for. This actually may have been a bit of a tactical blunder on Tertullus' part, and provided Felix a reason to treat Paul carefully. And that is, while the Sadducees had power, they were a minority. The Pharisees may not have had the power of the Sanhedrin, but they had the majority's support of the people. And the Nazarenes, while they weren't powerful, Felix may have realized that they were more numerous, and rulers always pay attention to numbers, because numbers cause rulers trouble.

No matter how powerless they might be individually great numbers are always a concern for politicians now the final and the fourth and final charge that Tertullus brings is that Paul attempted to profane the temple. And that he would have if The Jews hadn't reacted so quickly to stop it. This is the most serious charge for Paul, actually, because it's the only charge that would support the general attack of him being a pest. And even though it wasn't one he was guilty of, it was the one that had the most plausible chance of a conviction. And if he was convicted of that, that was a capital crime.

And see, what Tertullus and the Sadducees really wanted is extradition of Paul back to Jerusalem so they could try him for profaning the temple or tempting to and put him to death. Because this was one of the crimes that the Jewish people had jurisdiction over. You see, Jewish customs carried a lot of weight. And even with the Romans. In the Roman world, nothing was more sacred except maybe the emperor than the temple of a god.

And so profaning, they allowed the Jews, the jurisdiction and the right to execute people that profane their temple when drusilla Married her first husband remember. This is she's a Jewish Luke says But she's not a godly one at all It was on the condition that her first husband get circumcised, which he consented to. And I think that's just an indication of just how much latitude and respect that Rome gave to various religions when it came to their temples. And So this is a very serious charge for Paul because if Felix were to say, okay, yeah, you can take him back there and try him, then that could bring Paul to the execution. So Tortullus closes his little speech here, the perveratio in terms of the rhetoric, by asserting that he's telling the truth.

He says this could be determined by examining Lyceus. You can ascertain these things or so. And then the Jewish elders that he brought with him also testify that these things are true, but there's no actual evidence that they present. Now, I made the mistake last week of trying to cover that whole piece, so we're not going to do that this week. We'll close our look at this section here and pick back up with Paul's response to this next week, Lord willing.

But if we jump to the end of this passage, we find that Paul is kept in prison. And in closing, I just want to point out that the provisions of the Lord for Paul in this time and through this trial, that even though he isn't found innocent and he isn't released, he's rather imprisoned two years here and two more years in Rome. He's imprisoned for the rest of this book. God is actually working through His providence to protect Paul in amazing ways. You see, Paul is in danger from the Jews.

The Jews, just because he got out of Jerusalem doesn't mean that he's escaped. And then he's safe. The Jews remember targeted Paul in Europe when he left Corinth. And it was only because Paul uncovered their plot that he was able to take a different route, go up through Macedonia and come down to Jerusalem, that he escaped the plot and he avoided being assassinated. And they could get him here in Caesarea too.

And they could probably get him anywhere he went in the Roman world. They were that connected and that powerful. And so, this is all, this custody, this Roman custody, is all part of God's wonderful, marvelous, and mysterious providence to protect Paul and to enable him to complete this mission that God has given him of testifying before kings. What better way to get in the audience of the king than to come into their courtroom and in their courtrooms testify to the Gospel. That's powerful.

That's significant. Because there's a formality to it. That is significant. I don't have time to tell you about a case here in Conra where testimony under oath in a judge's courtroom, the Lord used in a wonderfully providential way to remove a wicked judge. And so that I believe is what God is doing here.

God uses this Roman custody to protect him from assassination. He had Roman protection in Jerusalem. He had this overwhelming force that escorted him to Caesarea safely. And that was necessary for his protection under the circumstances. And he's protected here by being detained in the Praetorium.

And there's reasons for it. We'll look at next week why Felix did that. But God used that to keep Paul in protective custody. There's protection from the corrupt Jewish court. They wanted to get him back to Jerusalem and try him.

The Roman custody protected him from that. And the Celiarch wrote a letter that really put Paul in the best possible light. There's protection here from a corrupt prosecutor. Felix isn't a great moral person, but Paul is protected from him. And Paul has a measure of freedom.

He's able to stay in the Praetorium. The Praetorium was a building that Herod had built. It was a nice place. It wasn't a dungeon. And he had liberty.

He had freedom. He could receive visitors. He could receive support from people. So that really became what this was, really, was a forced vacation for Paul. Many believe Paul wrote his letters from here, his prison letters from here.

And so this provided an extended period of rest after his arduous labors the last 24 years. And it also provided numerous opportunities to witness. To kings and to those in authority. And that's the subject of the last section of this book, is Paul's testimony before kings. And that all came about because of this protective Roman custody that Paul is in.

So, brothers and sisters, this is God's marvelous and mysterious providence at work. And He works in our lives the same way. When things happen to us, good or bad, it's the time to reflect on God's providence and how He might be working and how He might be bringing that together for good in our life and for the good of those around us. And so I know the first thought is to be discouraged or complain, but we really should remember God's providence is perfect. He works all things.

Not most things, not 99% of them, but He says all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. This is like the Esther story of the New Testament. Let us pray. Gracious Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your providential care and governance of all things, even moving the heart of kings and armies for your own glory and the protection and blessing of your people. Help us Lord to remember this fact that you are the sovereign, that you are reigning.

In all that happens in our lives, we thank you for this testimony. We ask that you would bless us and strengthen us in it. In Jesus' name, Amen.