Let's pray.

Father, what gifts you have given to us in these young people?

Their words, their heart, their mind, thank you.

I pray for them and for all of us that we would persevere now as we take hold of this unchanging

God, you are very self in Jesus' name, amen.

My aim in these next few minutes is to provide another incentive for the perseverance of your faith

and your fruitfulness in the next 70 years.

Or to say it another way, my aim is to sharpen your sword

so that you can fend off the forces that threaten your faith and your fruitfulness for the next 70 years.

And I choose the number 70 because a few of you will live that long, not many.

A few will live that long and because 2022 marks the 70th anniversary of my becoming a Christian.

And I have been pondering a lot with a kind of trembling cyclones and wonder

how God has held onto me.

And that's what I want for you.

Will you, and I'll broaden it out, will you endure to the end?

The word de-conversion is not in the Oxford English Dictionary as of Monday.

It's in the Dictionary of the American Psychological Association.

Words are created to name reality, not the other way around.

We didn't need the word de-conversion.

We didn't need it because the Bible abounds with words and descriptions of people who forsake Christ.

For example, apostasy, 2 Thessalonians 2, 3, falling away, Matthew 24, shipwreck of faith, 1 Timothy 1,

turning back from following the Lord, Zephaniah 1, trampling under foot the Son of God, Hebrews 10, going out from us.

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