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Today's first Bible reading is from Psalm 119, starting from verse 89 to verse 96.

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Psalm 119 verse 89 to 96. Your word, Lord, is eternal. It stands firm in the heavens.

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Your faithfulness continues through all generations. You established the earth,

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and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. If your law had not

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been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts,

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for by them you have preserved my life. Save me, for I am yours. I have sought out your

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precepts. The wicked are waiting to destroy me, but I will ponder your statutes. To all perfection,

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I see a limit, but your commands are boundless. The second Bible reading will be from 2 Peter

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chapter 1 verse 16 to 18. 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 16. For we did not follow cleverly devised

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stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in our power, but we were

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eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to

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him from the majestic glory, saying, This is my son whom I love. With him I am well pleased.

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We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

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Alright, well good morning again everyone. It's great to be here with you and I bring greetings

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from Bull Creek where I serve typically. So wonderful to be joined together in our fellowship,

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our wider WPC fellowship. There's a number of us, our churches across our state. It's great that we

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can serve one another in this way. So I will say as well, it's been a little while since I've been

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here. I don't think I've been here since Michael has been here and so I can see already the place

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looks a bit different than it did before. So wonderful to see some new faces too. So yeah,

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praise God for what he's doing among you guys. Now for this morning, so we're going to be doing

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a looking at a sermon called Can We Trust the Bible? Now this is from a sermon series that we

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did at Bull Creek earlier this year and really what we were trying to do in these sermons was

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think about important questions that people raise about the Bible, about Christianity in general,

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and one of these was this one that we're going to look at this morning. So looking forward to

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getting into that. It's more of a topical sermon for us today so we're going to think about the

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reliability of the Bible. But before we do that, let me pray. Please join me. Our great and gracious

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Father in heaven, we praise you for revealing yourself to us, for giving us your holy, inspired,

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inerrant word. We thank you that we get easy access to this, that each week, each day we can open it

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and turn and see the truths written within it. We pray this morning as we think a little bit about

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its reliability, would we come away from this morning with great confidence in your word,

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in the truth of Scripture? May that move us to be more faithful servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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In his name we pray, amen. Okay, well, back in 2019, the Christian pastor and author, a man named

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Joshua Harris, perhaps you've heard of him, he made this post on his Instagram account, one of

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his social media accounts. Now he had already, by this point 2019, he had disowned a very popular

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book on Christian dating that had actually made him famous a number of years before. This is one

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he'd written in 1997 called I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Maybe that's a book you're familiar with,

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it's kind of a thing that made him famous in the Christian world at least. But more surprises were

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in store because in this post that he wrote on his social media, he announced to the world,

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firstly that he had separated from his wife and secondly that he had gone through a process

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called deconstruction. What is that? What's deconstruction? What does that mean in this

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context? Well, the term itself is actually, it's a little slippery, a little hard to define exactly,

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but for those who use it, the noble aim behind this is usually to examine your own beliefs,

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to try and separate what's true from what's fiction. To separate what's true from what's

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fiction. To figure out in what you believe what's actually true and what's not true.

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But as another Christian man, a apologetics expert named Neil Shenvy said when he was

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recently asked about this, he said, the question is how do you decide how to do that in Christianity?

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How do you decide in Christianity what's true and what's false? Now that's a really important

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question to know the answer to, right? Because that is going to greatly impact our faith. Now,

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Neil Shenvy, this man, he goes on to answer this question. He said, the reformers, men like Martin

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Luther, John Calvin, they knew that the Bible is our ultimate authority. The Bible is our ultimate

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authority in matters of faith and practice. That's where we turn to determine what's true

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and what's false when it comes to Christianity and the Christian life. But for the man, Joshua

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Harris, and for many other people who say they're doing this thing called deconstructing, well,

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the Bible sadly is often the first thing that gets determined as false. They say the Bible's

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not really true. And sadly, from that point, often it's a slippery slope away from the faith

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until in the case of Joshua Harris, the man we were looking at, you get to a conclusion like this.

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Here's what he said on this post. I'm going to quote him. He said, the information that was left

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out of my announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus.

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The popular phrase for this is deconstruction. The biblical phrase is falling away. By all the

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measurements I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Now, the truth is that when

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someone comes to decide or comes to the point where they say the Bible's not true, it's not

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reliable, it's often maybe the most key part of them turning away from Christianity altogether.

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But it's not just former Christians who think this, it's also those who have never been

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Christian. We hear this in other places as well. So in the well-known work from, again,

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about 20 years ago, a man named Richard Dawkins, an atheist, he wrote a popular book called The

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God Delusion. Maybe you've heard of it. And in that book, he states this. I'll quote him. He says,

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reputable biblical scholars do not, in general, regard the New Testament, and obviously not the

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Old Testament, as a reliable record of what actually happened in history. And that's what he

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says. Another atheist, a man who, the late Christopher Hitchens, wrote a book around the

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same time, called God is Not Great. And in that he said, there was no flight from Egypt, no

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wandering in the desert, no dramatic conquest of the promised land. It was all quite simply and

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very ineptly made up at a much later date. All the mosaic myths can be safely and easily discarded.

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So when you read statements like that, both from people who are formally Christian and those who

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are atheist, when you read statements like that, well, who needs to ever look at the Bible to

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determine truth? If you believe these sorts of statements, you can just discard the Bible

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altogether. So no wonder for many today, outside of perhaps outside of this building, Christianity

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is a thing that can be easily dismissed, because to them, the Bible can be easily dismissed. So

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what does all this mean? I think it means that when Christians talk with non-Christians, when we talk

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with friends and family, one of the key questions that comes up over and over and over again when

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we're talking about Christianity is, can you really trust the Bible? Is it trustworthy? Is it true?

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Okay, and so for this morning, that's our focus. The next little part of the service, we're going

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to think about this question. How can we answer this? Is the Bible trustworthy? There'll be two

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main things that we're going to look at. Firstly, evidence from outside the Bible. What do we find

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outside the Bible that points to the Bible's authenticity? And what do we see inside the Bible?

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What's the evidence from inside the Bible? Okay. Now, when we talk about that first bit of evidence

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from outside the Bible, there's actually a wealth of information, a wealth of things that we can look

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at to determine actually the Bible is trustworthy. In fact, in the time we've got this morning,

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there's not enough time to be able to cover all of it. I'm only going to be able to look at a few

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specific things to make this case. So let's, and then we'll jump into Scripture to see more of it

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from the inside the Bible. So I'm going to raise a few objections that people often raise with regard

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to the Bible's truthfulness, and we'll look at them together. So first, people might say,

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we can't trust the Bible because it was written a long time ago. It was written so long ago. Now,

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this is actually a relatively easy one to write off. What lies behind a question like this,

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if someone believes this, is something you might call chronological snobbery. Now, that's the idea

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that old things, old events, just because they're old, are not as good as new and current things.

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And that's the thing we see a lot in our society today, isn't it? That you want to be on the right

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side of history, right? You don't want to be in the past, the past bad, the now and the future,

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that's good. And so if the Bible is written long ago, people would say, well, then it can't be

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reliable because they maybe, for example, didn't have the technology that we have today. But it

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doesn't take much to show this is actually really shallow thinking. So for example, in the world in

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which the Bible was written, that was considered what you'd call an oral culture. Now today,

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we've got a written culture. If I want to remember something today, what do I do? Well,

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I might get out my phone to take notes. I might have a writing pad in front of me and write things

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down. That's the way I remember something. I get my Google Keep is one of the apps on my phone.

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That's what I pull out and I make notes on it if I need to remember something. Now, but back in the

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day when the Bible was written, they wouldn't do things like that. They wouldn't be able to pull

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out their phone, obviously. Back in that day, what are they going to do? Well, they're going to tell

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it to each other over and over and over again. That's how they remembered things, remembered things,

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by retelling the stories over and over and over. And actually, it's surprisingly easy to do that.

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If you're retelling yourself something over and over, it's actually easy to remember it. Now,

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my example for this is at the moment for our three and a half year old daughter. Every night,

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she wants a story before she goes to bed. And she always picks basically the same story. So I've

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read the same book now for months, months and months every night. And I found that it didn't

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take me long. I can do it without even looking at the book. I can just point it out and just

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like read it without even looking at the pages because it's so burned into my memory just from

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reading it over and over and over again. Okay, now that's a little bit like what oral culture was.

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That's what it was like in the day the Bible was written. Now, if you don't believe me,

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well, let's hear. There you go. Someone's excited. If you don't believe me, well,

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what about this? Okay, now here's a Greek scholar, a man whose full-time job it is to study the

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original, the New Testament in its original language. He said it was common for children

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in ancient Greece, that's more than 2,000 years ago, common for children in ancient Greece to

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memorize all of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey. Now those are well-known ancient stories with

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about 200,000 words. These are big lengthy stories and it was common for children to memorize them.

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Now on top of that, it was common for Jewish Old Testament scribes, get this, to be able to

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memorize all of the Old Testament. I wouldn't be able to, I don't think it'd be able to memorize

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a chapter of the Old Testament, but the Old Testament scribes would memorize the whole thing.

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Now that's the kind of accuracy they had in transcribing things, in keeping things remembered.

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That's the kind of accuracy that we're talking about for those whose job it was to know the

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Scriptures and to pass them on to others. So when you think about what was happening in the day the

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Bible was written, we want to be very careful about saying, because the Bible was written so

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long ago, they just didn't have the technology, they wouldn't be able to record things like

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we can today, so we just can't trust it. Actually, no, that's chronological snobbery, it's shallow

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thinking, doesn't take into account what was happening back in that day. So that's the

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first objection. Second objection, we can't trust the Bible because it's full of errors,

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full of errors. Now this is a claim based on the fact that when we think about the New Testament,

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there are lots of copies of the New Testament or manuscripts of the Bible spread all throughout

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history. And now there's a professor in America, a man named Bart Ehrman, who's agnostic, not a

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Christian, and he's recently tried to popularize this idea that the Bible is full of errors. And

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one of the things he said is that when you add up all the errors, so an error is a difference between

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one manuscript compared to another, maybe it's a letter, maybe it's a single letter that's different,

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maybe it's a word, things like that. He says when you add up all these differences, that you get an

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enormous amount of them. And so people begin to think, well, if that's true, then the process of

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recording, getting the New Testament like we have it today, that must have been a little bit like a

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game of Chinese whispers. One person says something to the next and then to the next and all the way

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down this long, long line of copying. And so surely if someone introduces a mistake at one,

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then it gets copied to all the others, right? And now by the time you get to the end, you've got a

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completely different translation. Well, while it's true that there are minor mistakes, minor errors,

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differences between manuscripts that were used to copy things and transcribe them and continue them

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over time, actually that works in favor of the Bible's trustworthiness rather than against it,

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as some might say. How so? Well, the more copies that you have of a work and the earlier those

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copies are, well, the more chance you have of actually figuring out what is true and what isn't

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true. You're more likely to determine when you have two copies that have a slight variation

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between them, which one's accurate and which one isn't, because you can compare those two to all

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the other copies that are out there. You've got thousands and thousands of copies. You can compare

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them all to figure out what's actually true. And so there's a branch of scholarship that's

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actually dedicated to this task, and we call this a textual criticism. The whole aim is to try and

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better understand the creation and transmission of a text, of a written work. And when it's used

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rightly, and it can be used wrongly, when it's used rightly, you can compare all the copies that

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you've got of little parts of the New Testament and work your way backwards to determine what was in

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the original. And that's what's happened for the Bible. What this means is for the Bible, we can

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know actually to an incredibly high degree of accuracy, despite the differences in the manuscripts,

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we can know to a really high degree of accuracy that what we read in the Bible today is similar,

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almost exactly the same as what was written in the original. Now if you don't believe me, here's the

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man Don Carson, well-known faithful Bible scholar. Here's what he says. He says,

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nothing that we believe as Christians to be doctrinally true, and nothing that we are

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commanded to do, is in any way jeopardised by differences in copies compared one to another.

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Nothing is doctrinally true, nothing that we're commanded is in any way compromised by that.

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In other words, the fact that there are lots of copies, different manuscripts of the New

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Testament floating around, and that there are errors in them, differences, well those differences

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are so minor, it doesn't negatively impact the Bible's trustworthiness. It actually helps us

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to affirm its trustworthiness. Now before we move on, one more thing to say here, and that is,

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not only do we have accuracy in the way that the Bible was transmitted or copied over time

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for the scripture, not only do we have heaps and heaps of copies of different parts of the

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New Testament, we actually also have endless archaeological evidence. I really do mean endless

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here, endless archaeological evidence, because not only has evidence for the Bible been literally dug

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up to back up what Bible scholars have said in the last 150 years, it's still happening even today.

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We're still finding new evidence all the time. So I'm going to give you a few examples just briefly.

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Now before 1947, the oldest manuscript, the oldest copy of the Old Testament that we had dated from

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the 9th century AD. So that's obviously 900 years after the time of Jesus, more than a thousand years

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after the events themselves. But then in 1947, some shepherds in a backwater part of the Middle

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East, they stumbled across a treasure trove of biblical writings that had been stored in a cave

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somewhere in the Middle East. Here's a picture of that cave. There it is there. Now more excavations

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were done in the nearby caves and what came of it, what was the eventual result, was a thousand

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manuscripts, almost a thousand manuscripts being found that dated from the third century BC to the

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first century AD. These became known collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls, maybe you've heard of them.

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And what they did was they confirmed that what was in those earlier copies, the ones from the 9th

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century, were just the same as what was in these new ones that had been found that were much closer

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to the original events. So it was new evidence confirming that what the Bible says is true.

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Another one, so in 1993, I'm going to say this, the Tel Dan Steely discovery was made. Now if that

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word doesn't mean anything to you, all it means is a big stone tablet was discovered and that's the

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name. In those days, 1993, there was a growing number of academics and skeptics who were saying

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that King David, the well-known Old Testament Bible figure, that he actually must be fictitious. He's

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not a real person from history. Lots of academics and skeptics were starting to say that. They were

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saying, King David, he's more like King Arthur than someone who's actually real. And then in 1993,

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at a dig site, archaeological dig site, what happens? Well, they found this tablet. Found a tablet,

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here's a picture of it there. And on the tablet, there was a description of a victory over the

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King of Aram by the King of Israel. And what was written there is that the ally of the King of

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Israel was the King of, quote, the House of David. Okay, so here was more evidence that at that point

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not been discovered, more evidence backing up what the Bible actually says, that King David was a real

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person, that he was a well-known King, that he had a dynasty named after him, and that a line of kings

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came from him. That's everything that we read in the Bible, exactly as we read it. Now if you think,

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look, I'm just picking some from some past discoveries, and this doesn't happen anymore.

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Just last year, 2022, okay, last year, another tablet was found. This one was a cursed tablet

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found at Mount Ebal in Israel. And this one dated to around 1400 BC, a long, long time ago. And the

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thing about this tablet was it contained the personal name for God. That's a Yahweh.

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And this was a significant discovery just last year because it was the earliest evidence of that

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name, that the name Yahweh had not been found that early before. And so that's a big deal because for

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the past 100 years or so, a mainstream view in scholarship is that in the first five books of

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the Bible, wherever you see the personal name for God, wherever you see Yahweh, which in our English

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translations is Lord, capitalized, well, academics for the last 100 years have been saying that's

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been inserted much, much later. In other words, that's not part of the original. Someone's come

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in much later and added that to the Bible. But now, 2022, here was new evidence saying actually,

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no, it hadn't been added. It was there all along. Here's the early evidence for it, just as it

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appeared in Scripture. And in fact, this is such a big discovery that it basically meant the end of

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this mainstream view that had been held by so many scholars all over the world for 100 years. And all

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that was needed was more time to dig it up. So what else are we going to discover in the future? I

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think all we're going to do is keep finding more and more things from the ground that back up the

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historicity, the reliability of what we read in Scripture. We just need more time. Well,

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okay, a lot there. Hoping I'm starting to convince you now, let's move from evidence from outside the

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Bible to instead evidence from inside the Bible. And here I'll be a little bit more brief. Now,

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it goes without saying that the Bible itself claims to be God's Word. That's something we can

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all agree on. It's not some made up tale, but it comes from God himself. In fact, in 2 Timothy 3,

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verse 16, we read that it is God breathed. It's come from God's very mouth. Now, you also have

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countless references throughout the Old Testament saying, thus says the Lord. We read that over and

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over again. It's a thing coming straight from God. You have New Testament passages quoting

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Old Testament passages and saying, these are Scripture. So the New Testament considers the

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Old Testament to be from God. Basically, you could turn to numerous pages in the New Testament to

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see that. So for example, there's one in 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 15 and 16. There's one.

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But I want to read you another one. This one tells us that New Testament authors were

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eye witnesses of what Jesus said and did. Okay, eye witnesses. This was the one read earlier before

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I got up to speak. So Peter, second letter of Peter, chapter 1, verse 16 and 18, he says this.

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Let's go, claim to be God's Word. All right, there it is in front of you. So, four, we did not follow

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cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power,

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but we were eye witnesses of His majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father

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when the voice came to him from the majestic glory saying, this is my Son whom I love. With Him I'm

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well pleased. We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred

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mountain. Eye witnesses, Peter said. That's how we're able to tell you about this because we were

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actually there. We heard it, we saw it. And now we can read this in other places as well. The start

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of the gospel of Luke, for example. Here's what the author of Luke says. Many have undertaken to

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draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us. That is all the things that

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Jesus has said and done. Just as they were handed down to us by those who were from the first were

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eye witnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself, Luke says, I myself have

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carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I just too decided to write an orderly

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account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know with certainty of the things you have

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been taught. Okay, Luke was setting out to make things certain and he carefully investigated

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things. He spoke to the eye witnesses, the people who were there. He recorded it carefully. Okay,

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so we have the internal evidence for the Bible is crystal clear. Scripture is from God, it's from God

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himself and it's communicated to us by the people who were there at the time. Eye witness testimony.

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So, now that's a lot of information this morning. I hope though as we've kind of walked through it

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that you've seen that there is a mountain of evidence that confirms for us the Bible is indeed

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trustworthy. There's evidence from outside the Bible, there's evidence from inside the Bible,

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that go a long way to confirming for us that we can believe that the names of the people,

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the places, events, the things that we read about in Scripture, we can believe those things

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actually happened just as it is written. It wasn't made up like some would claim and then inserted

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later. No, it's reliable. It's verifiable. It is authentic and trustworthy. It's not a lie.

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It's authentic and trustworthy. But you know what I reckon the best evidence is, the best evidence

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for the Bible's reliability is that Jesus thinks the same thing. Jesus, the very founder of our faith,

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he was very clear in his belief that Scripture is trustworthy. Okay, that it records what is true

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and what is false. So let me give you an example. If you've got your Bible there,

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maybe you want to turn with me to Matthew chapter 12. If you've got your Bible,

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you've got your Bible there, go to Matthew chapter 12. I'm going to read verses 38 to 42 of Matthew chapter 12.

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Then some of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law said to him,

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Teacher, we want a sign from you. He answered, A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign,

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but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and

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three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights

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in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and

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condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and now something greater than Jonah is here.

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The queen of the south will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For she came

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from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom and now something greater than Solomon is

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here. Now of all the Old Testament stories that we read about, all the ones that could potentially

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be accused of being made up, Jonah's right at the top of that list, wouldn't you say?

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People are going to say Jonah, that can't be true. A guy lives in the belly of a fish for three days,

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that's wild. But what does Jesus think? Well, he seems to refer to it as its history.

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He includes it in the same breath as references to the queen of Sheba and Solomon who were,

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who are well-known historical figures. And he says that the men of Nineveh will repent

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just like they did in Jonah's day. Now that would be very strange for Jesus to say if he didn't

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think that what happened to Jonah actually was true. Now here's what Kevin DeYoung, the Bible

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teacher, here's how he illustrates this. He says it would be like making a literary allusion to the

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men of Gondor, if you know the Lord of the Rings, you know what that's about. And then issuing a very

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serious warning to your audience that the orcs of Mordor will rise up to judge and condemn them.

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And that's just weird because it's all fictional. It wouldn't make sense. No, Jesus had to be talking

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about real history. Now that's what the story of Jonah, when we read it, that's what it presents

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itself as, real history. And here is the real historical founder of our faith,

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affirming it, saying, yes, it's history. All right, there you go. Okay, that's my case.

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The case for the trustworthiness of the Bible. Now having heard all of this, a lot of information

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this morning, you might have one lingering question, okay? One lingering question. If the Bible

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is so trustworthy, if it is so reliable, so well attested historically, if it claims to be the

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ultimate source of authority from God himself and there's good reasons to back it up,

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then why don't more people believe it? Why aren't there more people out there looking at the Bible

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and going, yes, look at it, this is amazing. I wanna know more about Jesus. Why does so many

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people reject it? Why do our friends and family turn away from it? Why? Well, it's because no

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matter how good the case is for the reliability of scripture and the case is good, well, reason

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alone is not enough to bring people into the kingdom. In fact, it can't. Reason cannot bring

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a person, our logical arguments cannot bring a person into the kingdom. Why? Well, because

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the truths that the Bible speak of, that the matters it discusses, these are spiritual

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realities and that means they must be spiritually discerned. Now this is something the apostle

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Paul says, okay, in 1 Corinthians chapter two, he says, the person without the spirit

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does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, but considers them foolishness

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and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the spirit.

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Now does that mean it was useless, me kind of laying out the case for the reliability

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of scripture, should we just forget about that, give it a second thought,

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actually convert someone? Well, no, I don't think so, of course not. Reason is a helpful tool,

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but reason alone, experience alone is not gonna do the job. It must be a work of the spirit,

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it must be Jesus who opens the eyes of those who do not know him. And so that means sadly that we

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will continue to see people, men like Joshua Harris, who kind of, you know, he's a very

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good, deconstruct their faith and walk away, we'll continue to see that unfortunately.

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It means that we'll continue to see the people reject the Bible out of hand, people like

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Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Why? Because not everyone's eyes have been opened.

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So last thing, if I'm here this morning and what if I'm in that boat, what if I'm having trouble

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believing all the Bible says, what if I'm having trouble believing it's trustworthiness, what then?

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Maybe there's a part of the Bible that I'm having, I'm not too sure about.

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What do I do? I think here's some things. I think the best thing to do is to keep reading scripture,

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no matter what, keep it open, keep coming back to it time after time after time.

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That God's word tells us that it is powerful to change us. So the best thing we can do is keep

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reading it. I think as well, we've got to keep asking questions about its trustworthiness.

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I think that's a good thing to do. If you're not sure, I think the Bible is robust. It can handle

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these sorts of questions. So if you've got those questions, then ask them and be more than happy

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to chat to you after the service about that if you'd like or chat with Mike after, I'm sure he'd

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be happy to chat to you and Tom as well. Read up, I think, on these arguments. Some of the things,

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I've just given you a small taste of all the arguments that are out there for the Bible's

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reliability. There's a lot more to discover. It's a good thing to know these things because you never

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know when someone might ask you a question about this. You want to be prepared. And so I'll

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recommend two resources, two books that can give you some help with this. And they're both from

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Josh and Sean McDowell, two American gents, a father and son. The first one there on the left

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is More Than a Carpenter. That's a shorter book, easier to read, I think, with evidence for the

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truth of scripture and who Jesus is. And then the one on the right, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

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That's a bigger, kind of more full-on tome, but it's definitely worth reading as well. They lay

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out all the different things that back up what the Bible says. Okay, so there's just two books

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that would be helpful to look at if you want to know more. I think final thing to say, most

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importantly, if you've got doubts about what scripture says, the best thing to do is to pray.

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The best thing you can do. These are spiritual realities. That means we need Jesus' help to

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truly understand them. And the good news is that no matter who you are, no matter your background,

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no matter how familiar you might be with the Bible, to anyone who truly comes to Jesus to know

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him through his word, Jesus will always answer. He'll always answer that call. So I'm going to

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pray and let's do that now together. Dear Lord Jesus, we've read about your word this morning.

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We've looked at the arguments for the reliability of all that has been written down about you.

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We pray that you would continue to help us learn these truths, to be confident in all that you have

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said and all that we read in scripture. Would you give us the motivation to look into these things,

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to know them well, so that should we get asked about them, we'll know what to say in the moment.

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But we pray as well, we thank you for opening our eyes to see these truths. We pray for any who

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might be here this morning who are still not sure, we ask that you would open their eyes as well.

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Would they come to you asking these questions and be able to see all that you have said and the

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veracity of it. We thank you for these things. In your name we pray, amen.