Series introduction (David Forbes)

Letter to Ephesus (Dr Clifford Hill)

Letter to Smyrna (Frances Rabbitts)

In the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh, what we call the 'Old' Testament), a concept of God as all-powerful, even war-like, is sometimes expressed as the idea of a God who created the heavens and the earth, but who is distant and severe. He chose a Gentile man (Abram) and through him formed a people (the Hebrews) to show the nations the righteous lifestyle that He desired for all people.

But while He demonstrates His almighty power to judge all the gods of Egypt (Ex 12:12), He also 'comes down' to redeem His children (Israel) from slavery, and dwells with them to form a relationship of trust and obedience as He leads them through many trials to the land He promised to give to them.

Later, this relationship is expressed not so much as the Lord who fights for Israel but as a shepherd who tends His sheep, and as a Father who relates to His children by covenant. Even as His people turn away in rebellion and idolatry, His nature is clearly expressed through much loving discipline in a more tender form. Moses tells the people: Is He not your Father? (Deut 32:6); and Malachi repeats this: Have we not all one Father? (Mal 2:10). God Himself proclaims: Israel is my first-born son (how precious is that? Ex 4:22); and to King David: I will be his Father, and he shall be My son (2 Sam 7:14). And through Jeremiah to His wayward children: I thought you would call Me Father, and not turn away (Jer 2:27).

Many times the God of Israel expresses His nature as a parent to His children, as through Isaiah: O Lord, You are our Father (Isa 63:16, 64:8); and though a mother may forget her baby, yet will I not forget you (Isa 49:15); and, of course, as a Father to His Son Jesus: This is My Son, whom I love (Matt 3:17). He is a covenant-keeping God.

God Feels Emotion, As We Do, Like a Father

Our Father God is not impassive, cold and distant. Unlike Mr Spock who rejects all passion and regards emotion as a weakness, our God has feelings, even expressed in human terms: zeal, longing, a quick readiness to forgive and restore (as in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, perhaps better named ' the parable of the loving father'), tenderness, compassion, grief, hurt, frustration, forbearance, anger, mercy, and of course, an overt and outrageous love.

God's righteous anger at man's sin and rebellion is held in tension with His overwhelming love and mercy, and this is always that of a Father who wants the very best for His children. Isn't that what we strive for too in loving our own children? We have to show them both love and discipline, so they grow strong; and in the process we too sometimes get hurt. Jesus knew His Father's love, and Jesus' love for sinners and rebels originates from the heart of His Father.

Jewish sages have long wrestled to reconcile the desire of a loving Father to dwell with His children, and yet to discipline them in love and to judge sin, sometimes harshly but always with mercy, and they take a 'both-and' approach:

Mercy alone would be overwhelmed by sin -
Justice alone would require destruction of the world -
Only with both together will the earth endure.¹

Our Father's Plan of Salvation

The tension between justice that requires punishment for sin, and mercy that expresses the nature of a loving Father, finds perfect fulfilment and 'at-one-ment' through propitiation at the Cross of Jesus, even when it meant that His holy Father turned His face away as Jesus took upon Himself the sin of the world. For the punishment that brought us peace was laid upon Him.

Only a perfect man could die in our place to secure this peace. Our Father's heart must have broken then, for He and Jesus are one (John 10:30). But through Jesus' atoning death, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:19). Such amazing love! This was the act of a Father through an obedient Son for all His children who would believe in the Messiah for salvation and eternal life (John 3:36).

Consider the Fatherhood of God. When His children Israel turned away, breaking the covenant He had made with them to follow other gods in rejection of the One who loved, supported, protected and provided for them, what did He do? Kick them out? Destroy them? No! He made another covenant with them, a new covenant, where He gave them a new heart and a new spirit, even put His Spirit in them, so they will all know Him (Jer 31:31; Ezek 36:25-38). And He offers that to us also, because of His Son's sacrifice. How like our Father God is that? A God of second chances.

This new covenant in the Blood of his only Son is the ultimate expression of His deep love for you and me - His desire to dwell in us - if we will receive it, and to adopt us as brethren with His Son Yeshua, our Saviour. This is the Father whom Jesus invites us to pray to, especially as a community of His believing children. That's a good place to say Todah rabbah, Avinu! Thank you so much, Our Father.

Two questions as a challenge from these thoughts:

• For fathers (and mothers): Is our love for all wayward and rebellious children like that of our heavenly Father, who longs for, forgives, welcomes and restores them when they turn back?
• And for children (sons and daughters): Can we grow in the depth of our Father's love to know that He longs to welcome us too when we turn back to Him? We all, like sheep, have gone astray, and each of us has turned to his own way. But Jesus died for us, that we might live in Him, and He in us. Our Father has predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus. This is our Father God.

Notes

1 Gen. Rabbah 12:15

Author: Greg Stevenson

These first two words of The Lord's Prayer, as written in Matthew 6:9-11, evoke in me feelings so deep and strong that I find it hard to describe them. To be told that when I pray to God, I am praying to my father...

"Father" speaks to me of eternity. My own earthly parents were believers and I remember them with gratitude - warts and all! I realise that many of you haven't had this blessing of believing parents, but please accept these thoughts as they come through my own personal experiences. That my earthly father begat me, brought me up and set me on my feet for life can never be taken away...ever. Whenever I grieved him during my youth (and I certainly did), he remained my father.

I believe our Heavenly Father, by identifying us as his children, wants to have us know him better through our own earthly family experiences. As the tabernacle of the Torah is a shadow of the one in Heaven, so perhaps our earthly family experiences are to guide us to know better God's heart for us.

Who Our Father Is

While kayaking this week I asked two friends for their thoughts about the "Our Father" part of the Lord's Prayer. They went to Jesus' parable of Luke 15:11-32, commonly known as 'The Prodigal Son'. I often think of the story more as 'The Forgiving Father'. I see from this parable the picture of my Heavenly Father, who will not disown me when I turn back to him from foolish sinfulness - because we are family.

I myself am a father and recall two of my daughters once winning a race against some lads. The boys asked my girls how they did it. They simply answered "Our dad is Johnny Q!" as if this explained everything. Likewise, when asked how I get through difficult times, I am able to say that my Father is God Almighty, Lord of Angel Armies!

Being God's Children

In my Bible readings last week, I was struck afresh by Hebrews 12:5-13. Whilst it refers the readers back to a passage in Proverbs where an earthly father is giving guidance to his son, it also tells the readers that they are God's sons.

The similarity of God our Father with earthly fathers is drawn via the importance of a father's discipline. As a son, I grew up having the disciplined life that my earthly father taught me, at times quite painfully. Nevertheless, it has given me much comfort to know that this man loved and cared for me in a way that he reserved solely for me, my brother and sister. And we were the only ones that ever got to call him Dad. As a father I am likewise doing my best to give my five daughters as level a path for their feet (Heb 12:13) as I am able. To know God as Father comforts me that His love, care and discipline for me are the real thing and that I am truly adopted as His son.

But it's not just my Father. It's our Father. Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer firstly for groups of believers. My kayak buddies made a good point to me that this speaks of an equality of us believers in God's eyes. If the prayer were "Our God..." it might lead to a hierarchy, such as that one gets in a business set-up. But by the inference of us being God's children, having Him as our common Father, Jesus made it clear that we are one family...together!

Author: John Quinlan

In the final instalment of our series 'The Relevance of the Message of the Prophets for Today', Chris Hill looks at Malachi and his testimony to the love of God.

One of the common misconceptions people have about the Old Testament is that it portrays God as the God of judgment and not of love. They say we must look to the New Testament if we are to encounter the God of love.

Such a simple analysis will not do. The New Testament contains a great deal about God's attitude to sin and its consequences, while the Old Testament continually presents us with wonderful revelation of the Lord's love for his people. We have only to do a word search of chesed, the Hebrew word for 'steadfast love' or 'grace', to find that it appears over 80 times in the Old Testament.

The Old Testament view of God is that he is gracious and loving to those who repent of their sin and rebellion, and he promises to provide a Saviour. The New Testament takes exactly the same position but goes farther, declaring that the provision has been made! Jesus, the Saviour, has come! Hallelujah! The Lord does not change.

Back to Basics

Malachi was the man for the moment; unequivocal in his faithful proclamation of the burden of the Lord. He thundered against the unfaithfulness of the Jewish people and the priests. Their grave social injustices were a scandal. They had abandoned true devotion to the Lord and adopted an attitude of insolent indifference towards his righteous laws.

The Lord had been acting for their sakes. It had been a momentous time, a time of restoration. The Lord had brought a quite miraculous release to the Jewish people. Cyrus of Persia had overthrown the devilish legacy of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, and actively encouraged the Jews' repatriation to their land. Babylonian oppression was a thing of the past.

Zerubbabel paved the way. He and Ezra brought back many Jewish survivors. Temple worship was restored and Jerusalem rang again with the praises of God's people!

A common misconception is that the God of the Old Testament is the God of judgment, whilst the God of the New Testament is the God of love. But such a simple analysis will not do.

In 445 BC the Persian king permitted his cupbearer, Nehemiah, to repair the city walls. Nehemiah was appointed Governor of Judea, answerable only to the Persian Court. He brought in reforms to help the poor, to encourage family fidelity, to restore Sabbath observance and to encourage financial integrity.

Twelve years after introducing his reforms Nehemiah returned to the Persian Court. During his absence the Jews fell back into sin and the priests did nothing to halt the slide. Indeed, they spearheaded the rebellion, were casual in their duty to God and corrupt in teaching God's Law to the people. Nehemiah 13 shows that mixed marriage had again taken its grip, as well as abuse of the temple and the violation of the Sabbath. Malachi stepped forward.

With the religious leaders and the people in this sorry state, it fell to Malachi to speak out. Provoked in his spirit, he could not remain silent. The priests may compromise themselves - Malachi could not. Layman or not, affront or please, he must speak out the word of the Lord.

Tragically, if the scholars are right in dating Malachi, apart from some initial response by particularly God-fearing people, it seems that his prophetic preaching was largely ignored. When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem he found only godless rebellion.

Malachi had spent himself for God, but he did not have the satisfaction of seeing his message taken seriously.

Malachi's Prophetic Calling

It takes guts to be a true prophet of God. We all wish to be liked and for our ministries to be welcomed. Is there anything nicer for the preacher than to hear those words, 'Well, dear brother, I've not heard preaching like that for years. It was wonderful! When's the earliest we can have you back?'

If the Bible is anything to go by, the truly prophetic ministry is more usually greeted with, 'Well, brother, I didn't sense much of the love of God in your message tonight. In fact, you've upset a lot of people here and made them feel insecure.'

It is interesting that as soon as God's righteousness and judgment of sin are spoken of, people believe that his love is being ignored. But Malachi shows that this is neither true nor prophetic. His great purpose is to testify to the focused love of God shining on his people in blazing glory (Mal 1:2-5), and the whole oracle is designed to draw the people back to that love. In a sense the prophecy of Malachi is a love letter from God to his people. Malachi's purpose is not condemnation but restoration. Is not this the heart of the prophetic calling?

As soon as God's righteousness and judgment of sin are spoken of, people believe that his love is being ignored. But Malachi shows that this is neither true nor prophetic.

Malachi's Method

The prophet calls Judah, the unfaithful 'lover', back to the Lord, her 'true love', by reminding her how things were. This describes a relationship with God which brings delight to his people and to him. What is it like when we are living in love with God?

• I honour and respect my heavenly Father God (Mal 1:6)
• I offer him only my best (Mal 1:7-8, 13b-14, 3:3b-4)
• I delight in the habit of worshipping him (Mal 1:10-13a)
• I revere him and stand in awe before him (Mal 2:5)
• I speak only what he gives me to say (Mal 2:6)
• I speak only truth and never falsehoods (Mal 2:6)
• I walk with him in peace and uprightness (Mal 2:6)
• I turn many people away from sin because I am prepared to bring a word from God to them (Mal 2:6-7)
• I maintain loyalty to my brothers and sisters (Mal 2:10)
• I identify any pagan influence in the church or out of it and avoid it completely (Mal 2:11)
• I am utterly faithful to my wife (Mal 2:13-16)
• I give to the Lord what is properly his (Mal 3:8)

Part of Malachi's message is addressed to priests and part to laity. Both apply equally to us, as we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9), so we identify with Malachi's words whether he spotlights priesthood or laity.

Isn't this a delightful list? We can learn from it and experience it! Here he describes the normal life of the man or woman who loves God! The heart of Malachi's message is to call the people back to their 'true love'. He does so by showing how far they have drifted away from that first love and its awful consequences.

Malachi was faced with an appalling situation. It took tremendous courage to confront people who were living like this. It still does! How much of this is true today - of me?

It takes guts to be a true prophet of God.

Restoring Our Love

Loving God is the key to life. Malachi calls out across the centuries, 'Come back to your first love!' His message is timeless. First addressed to a backslidden Judah, his words lose none of their bite when related to us.

Because Malachi has provided us with a 'love letter' from God, it is full of hope for the future restoration. God longs for us and woos us with words of tender encouragement.

• I am loved by my Father (Mal 1:2)
• My Father wants his covenant of life and peace to continue in me and through my ministry (Mal 2:5)
• My Father longs for godly children to be the fruit of my godly marriage (Mal 2:15-16)
• I am sustained by the revelation that he is coming (Mal 3:1)
• His refining of me will make my offerings acceptable to him (Mal 3:3)
• Bringing to him all that is his, will result in his blessing me and my fruitfulness for him as he promised (Mal 3:10-11)
• The blessings he bestows will be a testimony to his grace alone (Mal 3:12)
• The distinction between me and those who do not love the Lord will be so obvious (Mal 3:18)

What Must We Do?

Any preacher worth his salt preaches to gain a response from those who listen to his words. It was so with our Lord and with his disciples. This is typified by the response of the Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem for Pentecost (Acts 2:37), 'What shall we do?'

Malachi's proclamation evoked a response from those who truly feared the Lord. Malachi 3:16 says, "Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honoured his name."

It is time for those who will hear and fear the Lord to find each other and talk about these things urgently. Will we repent and return to our first love? We are surrounded by luke-warmness, levity and deception. But growing alarmed accomplishes nothing in itself.

Loving God is the key to life. Malachi calls out across the centuries, 'Come back to your first love!'

It is time to find each other and ask the pertinent question, 'What shall we do?' It is time to start talking to one another about holiness. Time to start helping each other to be holy. This is how great revivals have started. Am I concerned enough about my spiritual poverty to want to do something about it? Never mind the pastor; never mind the other members of the fellowship. Is the Lord speaking to me?

Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament. To him fell the privilege of having 'God's last word' for close on 400 years. Malachi spoke of restoration to the love of God. He also spoke of the coming of the Lord (Mal 3:1-5) and he spoke of his forerunner who would prepare his way (Mal 3:1, 4:5-6).

Malachi paved the way for the gospel - the good news of a glorious victory. He paved the way for Jesus Christ and him crucified. It is by embracing what he has done that I can face what I may have become - and move back into the glory of what I have in Christ. Resting in God's covenant love.

First published in Prophecy Today, Vol 12 No 3, May/June 1996.

The concept of God being our Father is found throughout Scripture – although it is directly mentioned much more in the New Testament than in the Old. God as 'Father' is mentioned just 15 times in the entire Old Testament (though aspects of his fatherliness are often mentioned without direct use of the term 'Father'). In the Gospels, however, Jesus Himself refers to God as His Father over 165 times, with this practice being continued through the letters of Paul, Peter, James and John and on into the culture of the early Church.

Drawing a Family to Himself

References to God as Father often take one of two forms. The first group of scriptures refer to God as Father in a creational sense, as the ultimate Source of all that exists and as Sovereign over all our lives. Whatever happens in life, in the nations and in the course of human history, God is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, in total control of all that happens (e.g. Isaiah 64:8; Mal 2:10; John 1:3; 1 Cor 8:6; Eph 4:6).

The other group of scriptures refer to God's Fatherhood in a more intimate, familial sense - as Father of His sons and daughters, of those He has drawn out of the world, unto Himself. For the Apostles and the early Church, following Jesus' lead, God's Fatherhood is expressly personal; He was always already Father of all Creation – but He also desires and purposes to be Father of an eternal family.

Jesus' Example

Despite their prevalence in the New Testament, this second group of scriptures can be traced throughout the whole Bible. God's desire to draw a family to Himself is from eternity. E.g.:

I myself said, 'How gladly would I treat you like my children and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.' I thought you would call me 'Father' and not turn away from following me. (Jeremiah 3:10)

Yet, it is through Jesus that we get our closest insight into the intimacy, identity and devotion that come from experiencing God as our Abba. Not only did Jesus constantly refer to God as His Father, He also modelled sonship perfectly, walking in devoted love for and dependence on the Father for everything. Jesus shows us that God desires to father us personally, individually and intimately – and for us each to take our places as unique, beloved children in His Kingdom family.

Taking his cue from this, through the letters Paul refers often to "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ", to our "adoption as sons" (Eph 1:5), to our position as "heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ" (Rom 8:17), who is "firstborn among many brothers" (Rom 8:29). When we pray "Our Father" as part of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus is reminding us of our calling to belong to His Divinely ordained family, which is growing every day with new additions.

Each and every one of these additions is adopted irrevocably – no longer fathered by satan, but born again, fathered by the Lord Almighty. This is what we are holding out to those who don't believe – the opportunity to become children of God!

Like Little Children

If this is true, then we must all always come to the Father as little children (e.g. Matt 18:2-4; Luke 10:21-22). The beauty of entry into the Kingdom is that it is not based on intellectual expertise or spiritual insight – it's based on simple, childlike faith.

As we discover more and more of God's Father heart, we end up wanting all the more to be near Him, and to become like Him. What a contrast to the world, where children often set out into life with the express intention of getting as far away as possible from their parents and to avoid becoming like them at all costs (only to discover later on that they cannot escape their ancestry quite so easily!)!

God's intention is to conform us to the very likeness of His Son, who is Himself one with the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are being changed from glory to glory, becoming 'chips off the old block' in the best and most perfect way possible! And as this happens, as that first line of the Lord's prayer becomes reality in our lives, so the world looks at us and sees the likeness, the reflected glory, of the Father in His children. Amen!

Suggested readings: John 1:1-15, where God's Fatherhood of all Creation and His desire to father an eternal family are displayed side by side. Also Luke 15:11-32, the parable of the lost son.

Author: Frances Rabbitts

We begin a new series in our 'Thought for the Week' section, looking in detail at the Lord's Prayer.

I heard a story the other day about a monk who was seen for years on end sitting meditating on the Lord's Prayer. He was asked how much longer he would be spending on the Prayer. His reply was that he was still meditating on Our Father! I wonder what new things he understood day by day – more, I suspect, than most of us have yet considered.

What will the Lord show us as we meditate this week on the first phrase of this foundational prayer that is probably more appropriately called the disciple's Prayer?

Bible Meditation

The Hebrew word for meditation is linked to the idea of an animal chewing the cud, turning it over and over to ensure complete digestion. So how does one meditate on the truths of the Bible like that monk? One asks the Father to show us something as we hold the words in our mind, framing questions and listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

As we see new things the prayer becomes richer, our faith grows and our worship springs forth from greater depths, even as we meditate upon the words and are shown new things.

Come Close to the Father

Jesus encouraged us to address the Father directly - to draw near. We are to address him as Father, going beyond even the name Yahweh that Moses was given, and certainly not the HaShem (the Name) of some branches of Judaism, a term of respect perhaps, but also indicating fear of getting too close for comfort. He is not a distant god such as is portrayed in many religions, but a personal father to us.

Think, then, of the tremendous door that Jesus opened for those whom he enabled through his sacrificial death, for us to become children of a new and perfect Father. It is a pity that some family relationships in our human experience did not prepare us for such closeness and such trust. Even if we are scarred in some way by human rejection we must press in with trust in our heavenly Father, lest we miss the fullness of what Jesus died to give us.

The first part of our meditation this week, therefore, is to consider both the wonder of the relationship we are invited into and also to consider whether we have fully accepted and achieved this. Perhaps for some it is the time to grasp this truth and opportunity for the first time, washed clean through the blood of Jesus, worthy of the call to live in perfect and secure relationship with a perfect father.

Our Father

But let us not limit this relationship. It is all too easy to only personalise our relationship to my father. It is not just my but it is our, as we pray the prayer together. We are a family with one Father who treats us all equally as children. For some of us, this making room for others may be even harder to accept than our personal relationship. Yet the our of our Father also draws us close to one another, as we are each individually drawn close to Creator God.

If we find this hard to accept, remember that Jesus Himself, in teaching us to pray our Father, had great joy in sharing His Father with us, giving us family status alongside him. Pause and think of that!

One Word, Not Two

The our is not a separate word in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew for our Father is the single word Avinu. This unified word contains the root word for father – av or ab, which is linked to the familiar Abba that Paul used in Romans 8:14. This is an intimate word for father such as a small child is taught to use reaching out in trust to dada or daddy.

So Jesus offered a deeper, reverential familiarity to his disciples than would have been known before this prayer was taught. It would have been a shock to his hearers to be taught such an intimate way to address the God whom many in Israel had come to respect, but to consider as distant and unapproachable on such intimate terms.

Pause and Consider

So here is the challenge for us this week. Have we fully grasped what Jesus offered us as His disciples? Even after all these years of the Christian Church have we become the children of God in family together, in the way Jesus intended us to be? That was what he died for. Let's not miss out on our privileged inheritance - together.

Author: Clifford Denton

This week's scriptures: Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12; Joshua 1:1-18; Revelation 22:1-5

The last Torah portion for the year brings us to the edge of the Jordan. Moses prophesied over each of the Tribes, fulfilling his final duty as Israel's leader before handing over to Joshua, then climbing Mount Nebo to survey the Promised Land and dying in faith, according to God's purposes.

Behind lay all of Covenant history up to that point, from the Fall to God's commitment to separate a people unto himself. Moses' prophetic words showed that the future for Israel would contain difficulties, but that God would always be faithful to shepherd his people to the final goal.

The Point of Torah

Over this year we have considered many of the rich details of Torah, from the minutiae of individual laws to the grand scope of God's purposes. And we have only scratched the surface! But what is the main issue, the principal matter, the central purpose of it all?

There are many ways that the world is divided. Each political ideology, each world religion, defines its bounds where you are either in or out, and there are so many conflicting ideas that our minds are often confused as to our identity. Yet, the bottom line is that God is separating a people to himself.

The world is divided into those on a walk with Him to eternal life in His presence, and those who are not. God is calling out a holy people. The foundations of this were set in Torah.

Now, at the edge of the Jordan, the struggles were about to begin - in fulfilment of the prophecies of Moses. Joshua was soon to hear the words, "Be strong and of good courage...for the Lord is with you wherever you go" (Josh 1:9). The history of Israel began here in a new way, a history that we can now look back on these many centuries later. God, in calling out a holy people, committed himself to the battles (both spiritual and physical) that would lie ahead, but without compromise to the promise and purpose in Deuteronomy 33:29:

Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help and the sword of your majesty! Your enemies shall submit to you and you shall tread down their high places.

Still True Today

Those same words come clear to us today, in the context of the Gospel to the entire world and salvation through Jesus. As we take stock of all we studied over the last year through meditating on Torah, it is not primarily so that we should celebrate the Feasts, or be observant according to the precepts of Torah - important though these things are to the process of sanctification. It is that we become moulded by God's Spirit into a holy people, separated for all eternity as the family of God. This company of people is growing day by day and will do so until Jesus returns.

We are still in a spiritual war, one that is full of deception and distraction from this main goal. But let us not lose sight of it, learning from all that went before, fulfilling what Peter also said to us:

You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (1 Pet 2:9)

We are approaching another Jordan, greater than the one that Moses looked over and which Joshua crossed with the first company of chosen people. The final and greatest fulfilment of the Prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15) is Jesus, who will prepare his people and take them from this life into eternal life. The highest purpose of Torah is to prepare a holy people for that great day. What a privilege to part of this people! What a responsibility!

Author: Dr Clifford Denton