Pardon me, good evening and welcome to our midweek Bible study on Thursday nights.

We're going through the Bible book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse.

And before we get started, I just wanted to give you a praise report, especially for our

local congregation here.

As many of you know, Pastor Mack had surgery on Monday morning. We prayed for him, laid hands

on him during our prayer meeting, the Tuesday night prior. And he wanted me to share with you

on his behalf that not only was the surgery an absolute success as we prayed for, but it was so pronounced

that it was one of those things, and he's going to share this, I'm thinking as soon as he's

back, which by the way, get this, he may be here on Sunday.

Only the Lord could do that.

This was major surgery.

So anyway, he called me.

He said, you know, Pastor J.D., there are times in my life where, you know, you pray and God answers that prayer.

But then there's those other times in your life when you pray,

and it is unmistakable that the outcome was so much different because you prayed so much so that had you not prayed,

the outcome would not have been the same. He said, this was one of those times. You know how that is where, yes, praise the Lord.

So I remember this was a while ago on a prayer night.

I shared how that that particular day, my day ended up in such a way that

I knew without question that it was because I took the time that day to pray.

In other words, had I not prayed that day specifically, my day would have ended up very

different and not in a good way. It's just one of those times where you realize just how powerful

prayer is to change things. And then you think about, and sometimes you just kind of shriek in horror

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