SS-02 The Sign of the Lame Man

The Sign of the Lame Man

1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. And a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, "Look at us!" And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene―walk!" And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God; and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

I apologize to you that I have not well kept in faith causing you worries, and I do not think that it happened as a haphazard step which you need not go through with me.

This was not the only occasion that I fell sick; I fell ill frequently in the past, and there was a pattern whenever I became ill. Many have come to me in bed to worry about various possible causes and to give pieces of advice out of their compassionate hearts, and I am very grateful to you for that too.

There is one thing which I would like to testify clearly; my illness always starts on the Lord's Day. After going through from Friday, Saturday, morning and afternoon services on the Lord's Day, and preparing the Sunday School Lesson material, when I walk out at the end of the meeting of Sunday School teachers, that is when I struggle not to stagger and not to collapse out of exhaustion even though I may appear to be walking with some strength, and I have never walked through the aisle with normal vigor these days.

I took my fatigue for being faithful, and expected to recover soon since I thought the fatigue to be a consequence of intemperance, but this time I still had hard time walking up to the fifth floor after the meeting of Sunday School teachers last Sunday afternoon. Further feeling uneasy in the stomach I walked down the stairs here to breathe some fresh air, but my limbs were not functioning normally.

So I repented of a sin, the sin of intemperance. Only a man who is bestowed of power is able to carry out the amount of work which I do, and it is beyond an old man with no power from God. I had been working too much, only to be overwhelmed; to attend the Sunday School teachers meeting and the attendance reports meeting, to prepare Sunday School Lesson material on the spot, and to prepare for services, these have been excessive. Now I am considering adjusting my duties.

Considering my age, I am thankful for having been allowed to work manifold of what my contemporaries have done. I think that I could carry on unless fatigue should overwhelm me, but I see that it is not the case now that I have fallen ill because of the fatigue. In fact some elders had advised me to rest in bed another two or three weeks, but I could not but stand on the pulpit as long as I was given some, if any, strength.

I apologize again that I have been careless, causing you worries, and you may have had what you have understood from this. I think that the word is pertaining to us that "from everyone who has been given much, much will be required." During this illness of mine I let other pastors deliver sermons in my stead, only to find that each one of them is a great preacher of doctrines and articles of faith. What has been taught is inside the pastors only as knowledge, and it will be condemned unless it enables us to advance to salvation.

Four Kinds of Men in Faith

  Today we have read the passage on a lame person from his mother's womb. There are some kinds of people written here: the most miserable person that is the lame man since birth, those who used to carry the lame man to set down at the gate of the temple called Beautiful and to let him beg, and those who were filled with wonder and amazement to see that the lame man was given grace to be healed of his disease.

Classifying the people who appeared in the incident, we have four kinds of people: the most miserable lame man since birth, those who carried the sick man to beg alms through the very sick man every day, those who were focusing and taking note of the sick man who had been healed of lameness only to be agitated, and the apostles who played an active role in the occasion.

We understand as it is written here that Peter, John, and apostles ministered to the power which Jesus performed. Now that Jesus had ascended, they worked for the gospel as laborers of the gospel in many persecutions.

Today also we can deduce and infer that our Church is where there are four kinds of people. This is not a vain revelation, which has surely been taught through a pattern about the present state of real Church.

1. Apostles

Then first there is a man like apostles who are taken hold of by the Lord as a worker of the Lord to perform a supernatural power of God which man cannot do, so as to cure man of human diseases to make whole. A person with a good reputation may not be necessarily the only one to cure mankind of all diseases and of all diseases of darkness that have been caused by the original and actual sins. There are many through whom, though regarded as the least and smallest, God performs works of authority to heal diseases of death through the vicarious redemptive works of Jesus.

2. Those Who Carried the Man

It can be regarded as service in that they carried him to the temple to let him beg to survive, and it can be reckoned as alms and charity in that the sick man could be healed when the water was stirred up by an angel. It is written in the Scripture, however, "they endeavored to carry him along to set down every day at the gate of temple called Beautiful in order to beg alms." Anyone can interpret about this on his own, but the Scripture says, 'carried him along to set down to beg alms,' which means that what he earned was to be divided among themselves.

Their words and behavior were full of compassion, pity, and sympathy, but the Scripture says that they carried him to beg. Though it is not written explicitly we can infer what those who carried him were like; they were most sympathetic for the sick man and kindest to him, but they would become displeased when they saw the sick man healed of the disease so as to be running and free as a healthy man, because then they would perceive that their hope of profit was all gone. Rather, they would be pleased to see the sick man deteriorated of the disease so that people might sympathize with him the more.

Likewise today we can infer from this passage that there are those who use the gospel movements as a means of gain though claiming that they are gathering people to make them believers.

We must be cured of human diseases to be truly clothed with the salvation of vicarious redemption of Jesus. We must be transformed so that our true man may be restored who will live according to the laws of the Lord. We must be healed of the disease of living centering on our profit only, and we must be transformed from the man who begs into a true man who will gladly be in difficulty and poverty on behalf of the Lord and His Way even though the world calls him silly. We must be cured to have our normal and true man restored now that we know how poor Jesus has become truly for us and we know even what He has given to bestow the work of salvation on us. Now suppose that one's true man has been restored, so he is now whole. What will happen to those who have been dealing with him? There are those who, like the old brother of the prodigal son that was displeased at his younger brother's coming back safe and sound, will be worried, envious, and jealous. There are those in worldly hope who will desire only their profit, gathering as many people as they encounter by any means, but on the other hand the very those will be worried to see the sick man transformed into a true man.

I do not assert that, whenever they carried the lame man to beg, they explicitly said to him, "Whenever you see people, you have to try to benefit from them, that is, you have to make money using your lameness in any inhuman and unjust means and in any discordant way with the gospel if necessary. Then we can share more for each among us." It is difficult to stretch this passage to say like this. It is shown as a piece of formal revelation here that there are such laborers of the gospel; we will be regretful if we just pass by the incident in the passage as someone else's affair recorded as a fragment in history.

3. The Lame Man

The sick person who had been lame from his mother's womb was the most miserable, and he was doubly dead so much as he had his sickness exploited for others' living.

When the man met the disciples of Jesus, he inadvertently tried to beg, but they said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk!" He did not ignore this word which works salvation through Jesus and cures diseases through Jesus.

"I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ whom you crucified, walk!"―"All the people deny Jesus Christ the Nazarene who was crucified. Receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord, and be healed of your weakness through this Jesus who is misunderstood as causing useless harm on men."

"Be healed of your disease through Him."―"You will be a stately individual when you have been healed. Why do you have to live a man begging desperately, pretending to suffer double of what you are really suffering, pretending to be in much pain while you are in little pain, and pretending to have nothing while you actually have something, all these miserably and pitifully, only to use your abnormal condition as a basis of profit to force others to yield alms?"

When told, "Be healed of your disease in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene," the lame man tried to stand up and was seized by the right hand and was healed of the lameness.

Christian's Happiness

  There were many kinds of people then. The lame man who was healed of the infirmity must have been the happiest, and the apostles the second happiest, and all the other people who were filled with wonder and amazement, the third. However, those who used to carry the lame man appeared to be happy but in fact they were being worried and troubled as they realized that their hope of profit had gone. This is Christianity exactly.

In Christianity it does not matter if one's origin in any respect may be the humblest, in economy, understanding, intelligence, or looks. It does not matter even if it may be the most worthless. The most blessed in Christianity is the one who will admit that his hopelessly abject condition can be remedied through Jesus and try to be remedied to be saved.

It is good to be endowed with more grace, natural or acquired, than others, but it is in fact a lure. It does not matter however inferior we may be; whoever among us comes in to the presence of Jesus must believe that Jesus is the One who heals us and is the Savior and Lord of our soul and flesh, in all our intelligence, morality, business, and worldly success. In any respect cited now we must receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and we must hope to be healed by Jesus to attain to perfection through Him. The man who was lame since birth was the one who had this hope.

He was the happiest, but his happiness was not the same as what he had had arising from the money earned through begging in trembling every day. His happiness was not from money or success in the world. First, he felt happy since he was healed of the disease. Second, he was happy since he, who was not able to enter the temple because of the disease, could now enter the temple freely. These two reasons made him happy.

The lame man came to have reasons to be happy, and his happiness was far more excellent than happiness and felicity that all the other people around him might felt. This is Christianity.

In Christianity we may think that we will be happy greatly if we have believed in Jesus well enough to accomplish our goal of success in economy or in society, but the confession common to all the saints says that it indeed was a source of happiness when accomplished, and that once it was realized it ceased to be a source of happiness, making all of them say in boredom, "No, not this one," and give it up. That is the saint.

After what we, the saint, wanted has been gained, we will come to yearn for the way of the cross of the Lord so that we would rather be poor because of Jesus than be rich through Jesus. We would rather go through an enormous friction because of Jesus than succeed through Jesus, and in the end we would rather die because of Jesus than become honorable and glorious through Jesus. This happens as we the saint grow in understanding, and this happiness, which is obtained when the saint is corrected through Jesus, is unique anywhere it happens to be.

There is no limiting in gaining this happiness, and there has never been one that ever regretted getting it. It is never boring and regrettable to the Christian to cure of himself the human disease of this sort or that sort, behavioral diseases, all diseases in ideas, and all diseases arising from the evil spirit, evil nature, and evil habits. The happiness thus arising is everlasting.

Now that the saint has been cured, he has become closer to the Lord, and the happiness will never die out that he feels when he visits the temple with the Lord. No one has ever regretted after they obtain this happiness. Here we can see the so-called beatitude in Christianity. Numerous people went into and came out of the temple who appeared to lack nothing in every respect, but they did not take part in the direct work of grace by Jesus. They were just filled with wonder and amazement when they saw those who obtained happiness through Jesus. We ought to notice again that there were many people like them.

The man was happy who had been changed, and those around him approved, envied, and liked the change. Numerous people, however, never had the change come to themselves, and regarded it as satisfactory to visit the temple externally only. There were many people like those who were thus unfortunate, and we must dwell on quietly whether we are not one of such numerous people who are merely counted in church membership but not counted in spiritual communion.

The lame man himself may have tried to stand up, but when he could not wake up by himself, the apostles raised him up seizing him by the right hand. Even though it seemed that the apostles raised him up, it was entirely the power of the Lord that strengthened his feet and ankles. Today we Christians too can help others perform in faith, but it is only what the intelligence of God has come and raised others that will not be burned up.

We heard in the Friday night sermon that our faith is tested as gold is tested, to examine if the work of God can be removed from us. That power can come to us to work. The power, not of human, comes into us to work. That is the core which will not perish by fire.

Which of the four kinds of people are we of? Maybe two of the four kinds we are of at the same time. Maybe three or maybe four kinds are all present within each of us at the same time. Then we will find what to discard and what to fortify to correct ourselves today.

Prayer

Among those who were workers of the gospel or related to the gospel of the Lord, only did the one become happy who hoped to be cured through the Lord, and any life without this is all in vain. May the Lord work through the Holy Spirit for us to take hold of this. I pray that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the influence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit be with us forevermore. Amen.

Selected Sermons 02 1982-08-22 Afternoon The Sign of the Lame Man (Continued) Acts 3:1-15

1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. And a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, "Look at us!" And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene―walk!" And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God; and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon, full of amazement. But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, "Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life."

In the morning Service I testified that there were four kinds of people written in the passage. The first kind of people was of the man who had been lame from his mother's womb. The second was of those who carried the lame person since birth to set him down every day at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, to let him beg alms. The third was of the apostles who came to the temple to pray, to work the healing of the lame man in the name of Jesus. The fourth was of the people who wondered and were amazed to see the man cured of the disease. We can say that these four types represent the entire people in the Church, and the entire mankind too.

The reason that I have to testify this word again this afternoon today is not so much that my testimony leaves something to be desired as that the hearts of those who are listening are much perverted. The truth of the way of faith in Jesus is difficult to apprehend the outline of if one attempts to study the Scripture by going through lists of subjects to study, and that is why God has instructed us many times through formal, historical revelations.

The Revelation to John, the Book of last prophecy, is almost symbolic. God had the Book of prophecy made such so that it will be easy to remember, think, and understand, but He also made it such so that anyone without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit will deviate, become crooked, and misunderstand. In fact, Jesus in His days rarely gave revelations except by parables or forms.

The Best Happiness of the Christian

  As testified in the morning Service, who was the most blessed of the four kinds of people? The most blessed of the four kinds of people was the lame person since birth, who himself was the most blessed, who made others blessed, and who pleased the Lord, and the happiness obtained of the healing was the best. There are numerous happiness and blessings in kinds and numbers, but the most excellent and unchangeable happiness of the Christian is that which happened to the lame man, the happiness in Christianity.

Being faithful does not necessarily secure the best happiness of the Christian no matter how faithful one may be so that the one has become changed and has been given grace of God to devote to Him enormously. Even though one, male or female, has become a saint or a saintess to do all kinds of service and sacrifice through the given official authority, the person will not have taken hold of the true happiness of the Christian but missed it, unless inside there has been this power to heal disease; inside that Christian there will be no happiness that excels the world.

All the prophets, apostles, and saints in history could attain the true happiness of the Christian only when they desired to correct both themselves and others through Jesus, when they did the relevant works, and when they saw the ensuing results. It has not been attained otherwise. Of the four kinds of people the lame man was the first to obtain the best pleasure, with his desire and hope flourishing.

The Second Best Happiness of the Christian

  It was the apostles Peter and John who obtained the second best happiness of the Christian. They obtained the pleasure and joy resulting from the desire and endeavor to heal others of their diseases to make them whole in the name of Jesus. That became joy to the Lord and to themselves in this world and the world to come. Even though one has achieved works with power to the pleasure of the world and he has achieved a success with requirements satisfied in every way, he will not realize this joy unless in the center of his heart there has been desire to heal through Jesus. He will inevitably meet with an agony in thirst and qualm.

A Christian must know that he has no other joy in the world than that of the work of healing man through Jesus to correct either himself or others. Also he must know that he has no other happiness than this.

One can do various works. Even though he has done every service and sacrifice on behalf of the gospel, he will be overcome by darkness feeling suffocated and stifled the moment he forgets the purpose of his administering, sacrificing, and servicing to cure man by the grace of Jesus. That he has lived up to the very purpose will come to add up naught; he will be stopped immediately he forgets it.

How can he restore the happiness which he once had? He must recognize that he has not done it for the world and anything in it, and he has done it to correct either himself conforming to Jesus as model or others through the works of Jesus. He will be restored the happiness when he discovers this.

The Christian in the world should cure through the vicarious redemption, that is, through every remission of Jesus', through the justification, and through the reconciliation. The Christian should cure through Jesus. The gospel works in this way, as Jesus said, "I came to heal the sick, not for the righteous."

Therefore let us take firm hold of this. The inspiration of happiness will not come to a believer in Jesus however much he may call on Jesus, praise Him, and serve Him, unless he is engaged in works from the center of his heart to cure disease of man whom Jesus redeemed through His blood.

Works of Healing the Human Disease

  In the passage that we read this afternoon, many people marvelled, took note and were amazed. Why? There were men present there who had been so close and intimate to the lame man to carry and bear him like their own body and limbs, but he parted from them and followed Peter and John. He clung to Peter and John leaping in happiness and joy, and came to belong to them. That is what those many people saw, and they were filled with wonder and amazement.

In the earth we do not go far from them. Perhaps we will happen to be blessed, making ourselves and others cured, in the name of Jesus. Or perhaps in a bad case, we will happen to be miserable, aggravating the lame man hoping for the profit of his playing lameness to our advantage.

We as a believer in Jesus must hope to repent to be clothed with the redemption praising the Lord of redemption, and must hope to become a righteous man before the Lord of all, pleasing Him in happiness in body and soul through the grace and blessing of God. On the other hand, however, we might choose to be engaged in works of original and actual sins. Recognizing the advantage of being of worse lameness in exacting pity out of people, we will deviate to become a mass of the original sin and a mass of actual sins, resulting in the worst among the fallen. Then we will extract men using the power of the original and actual sins as long as we stay in the sins, but we will not be interested in serving or sacrificing for men.

Man is taught to live in the corrupt nature from youth and he is educated further only to live in the corrupt nature; consequently he will in any means leave God and become an expert in staying apart from God, he will grow apart from God, and he will become strong without God to use all the others and to profit from all the others. Now let us consider all these behaviors using our conscience, then we will see that the behaviors are not in the least different from that of the beggar soliciting alms selling his lameness or that of those using the beggar to profit themselves.

Therefore we are liable to concentrate on nourishing the corrupt nature of the original and actual sins and the corrupt nature of distancing God, and on taking what the corrupt nature has grown to be as the main function of walking through the world and as the main source of happiness; we are the one who serves for the lame man, carrying him to set down for begging. In fact, it cannot be too exaggerated that such is the whole world; the whole world is what is revealed in this truth.

In the past, the worse the lame man's condition became, the more indispensable those who carried him became to him. Now that his disease has been cured through Jesus, he has nothing to do with them; he takes hold of Peter and John who have rescued him from the real misery in the name of Jesus, and follows them. This is what man will end up as.

We put every effort to make happy the one who is beloved and close to ourselves, but when the very one whom we now love understands in the end the truth about all things and the laws of God as his eyes are opened like the rich man in purple, he will identify us as his enemy. The one who belongs to us, saying that he cannot live without us now, may be later an enemy to us. His present relationship to us may all be forgotten to him.

The man cured of the lameness, Peter, and John, these three became one and he became the man of Peter and John, but he was anything but the man of those who had borne him to carry for begging. When this man was cured of the disease to stop begging, or selling lameness to extract others, he became truly pure, blessed, and normal. Then those who had carried him for begging were more likely to complain. Why? Because their gains ceased.

Christian Happiness and Human Disease

  We can also see today many of such incidents. The two thousand swine perished into the sea and the demon-possessed man was cured. It is clear that man is more valuable than two thousand swine, so it was a pleasant occasion; but it is shown that the Gadarenes people implored Jesus to leave their region. What made the Gadarenes people displeased at the apparently pleasant event? It is to show that men are confused about the values of man and material things so that they appreciate material things over man.

I have seen the same frequently. The other day a man brought his daughter to our church. She had been beaten before being brought to us, and she was publicly reviled by her father. Why? He was not pleased that his daughter became human to behave normally and cured of human disease to cast off inhuman deeds. He was not pleased that his daughter would not become an evil woman worst according to his desire so as to devour the world like a crocodile.

He said that he was saying out of his love to his child―"Why are you leading such foolish life as this, how to live in this evil and cruel world?" How many people have been cast out and deserted who would keep sabbaths and commandments and fear God, to try not to do evil to men, not to cause trouble to men, and not to repay evil for evil!

When the daughter tried to attend dawn service, which required the girl to wake up too early for her age, and when she tried to read the Bible, her father judged that his daughter was insane and degraded. His daughter, that he knew of, had had only the knowledge which is dead and killing in the earth, and which had been her only interest to strive for with all her efforts. Now her father concluded that she was trying to be a conceited human being as if she were righteous or something. We see that the girl is being persecuted.

Many, being called believers in Jesus, will not wake up their children to attend dawn service while they will wake them up punctually at any time for their school works. Why? They suppose that their children must be made like the lame man to be efficient at begging and to be strong in the original and actual sins, in order not to be trodden down but to live in this ruthless world. This is the same phenomenon that we are observing.

What does this word of revelation say to us? The Christian cannot obtain joy unless every piece of his thoughts and deeds is centered in the works and the consequences of curing either himself or others through Jesus. It does not matter however much he may have become a saint. He will have saint's happiness if he has had the desire and the works to cure, and relevant results of cure.

He will not, however, have the Christian's happiness in the earth if he has been content with his current things and conditions, if he has had no desire and efforts to find disease and to cure, and if he has had no newly cured results. There will be no joy for the Christian. We must take firm hold of this here.

Without this, one may sweat to do something for his child as the men carried the lame man with much sweat. Still when the child comes to himself, if ever, he will never appreciate the service, sacrifice, or efforts which his parents and brothers will have rendered to him. In fact, he cannot thank them.

Ingratitude means a discreditable lack of gratitude. God works everything in such a way that one should be grateful to repay a true favor. Then why did the lame man become an enemy to those who had carried him to beg? The ignorant people meant really to show favor to him on their part, which could have proved only to drive the man to die. It is not because filial piety is wrong that God forbids it sometimes. In some cases it is prohibited for children to be grateful for the grace given by the their parents because that grace is just what has killed the children.

Regardless of one's depth in faith, the Christian will never attain happiness in the earth without the desire and efforts to cure himself and others through the name of Jesus and without such results. Ignoring this, one may infuse the knowledge of the serpent, the knowledge of the original and actual sins, so much as to make the others belonging to him live with more corruption in the world devouring people of less corruption. In this way he may do service for the one who belongs to him, but some time later he will be rejected by him who is served now and will have nothing to do with him. It is said in this passage. We do have many dark sides in our life.

There were many people who followed this man who once had been lame but was now made whole, but they had nothing to do with him. There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, but he was sent only to a widow in Zarephath. There were many lepers in the time of Elisha, but only Naaman was cleansed. What do the two examples mean? Many people witnessed the man cured of lameness through the power so that they took note and were filled with wonder and amazement and followed him, but they all had nothing to do with him since they themselves had had no desire or wish to cure the lame man.

Today also we presume that we believe in Jesus, saying "Lord, Lord," but we are likely to become churchgoers who are onlookers of those Christians receiving grace and who have nothing to do with the power of Jesus that heals man.

Conclusion

  Therefore the reason that I testify this passage this afternoon is: The Christian ought to seek for what to cure through Jesus, ought to have desire and endeavor to cure what should be cured, and ought to realize what has been now cured. John the apostle had never had this happiness in the earth until he came to the island of Patmos, where he found some difference between himself and Jesus which he thought was never to be settled. When he fell at His feet like a dead man, he may have found the happiness which he had never had. Then he may have come to desire and live, at least a little more, in thirst and vitality for the rest of his life without boredom and fatigue, and without laxity which is found in a complacent man.

No matter how much we may do service for others, we will lose them in the end unless our service for them now is of works to cure man. They will not be our men, and ultimately they will become our enemies. Irrespective of the service which we render to them, the result will be the same. It sounds off that the world is of ingratitude and of the ungrateful to parents, but the saying is true to the principle, at least, according to the Scripture.

Prayer

I thank Lord for illumining our dark hearts and souls again. Grant us to know that the happiest is the one who has himself cured through the Lord, and the second happiest is the one who takes part in works of curing other brethren. Also grant us to experience and undergo personally, all the infinite and eternal joy which is unmeasurable in the world and which lies in the cure through Jesus, and grant us to take firm hold of this truth to live the whole life ahead us. Also grant us to understand that though we serve with all the strength, the result may be a break-off and a cause of complaints and worries with each other, and that we may end up having nothing to do with each other. Make us conduct wisely in the world with this understanding. I pray in the name of Jesus the Lord. Amen.