We read God's Word together from Haggai chapter 2. We come this morning to read verses 20 through the end of the chapter. This is the fourth message that God has brought by the mouth of Haggai to his people. The first message came in the second year of Darius, in the sixth month of that year. The second message came a month later, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of that month. The third message came on the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. And this message, the fourth message, comes on the same day as the third message. Haggai chapter 2, verses 20 through 23. The Word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month to speak to his irrevocable governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the horses and their riders shall go down. everyone by the sword of his brother. On that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of Hosts. Leadership in any organisation is critical. Good leadership will motivate those within the organisation. Good leadership will give direction to those within the organisation. Good leadership will manage and take care of the personnel within the organisation. Good leadership will enable and facilitate the organisation to realise its goals and aspirations. The Church is the only living organism in the world that will pass into eternity. Its goals outstrip any goals that any other organisation has on the face of this earth. No other organization, organism, has the task of making known the manifold wisdom of God to all creation. The Church, and the Church alone, has been chosen by the Creator of heaven and earth to declare, to make known, to reveal His manifold manifest glorious power and wisdom. Leadership in the Church, therefore, is of the highest crucial ingredient in the world. And yet, the reality, as I spoke on at least two occasions in this study in Haggai, is that at many levels of leadership within the Church, and especially among ministers, there is a large degree of discouragement, as is seen by their frequent comments and the need to be just pressing on, being faithful, living in a day of small things. There is a great deal of discouragement among ministers, particularly, and also among elders, those charged with the leadership of the Church of Christ in this land. Speak to any minister and he will tell you of the difficulties that he is having in his life and in his ministry. Few will speak with enthusiasm of the task to which he has been called. And here we have this most important of all organisms in the world, the only organism charged with the responsibility of making God known through His Word and through their lives. And you have a leadership that is discouraged and disheartened. And, may I add, not without good reason. Ministers prepare sermons. They take time. They read the Word of God. They study the Word of God. They engage with God in prayer. They come on a Sunday and they preach to the best of their ability. Yes, There are human factors that affect their preaching from week to week. But there are many good men who preach wholeheartedly to the very best of their ability. They visit people. They seek to encourage people. They seek to exhort people. They invite people to participate to a greater degree in the life of the Church. And yet the truth is, they very often see very little return for all their efforts. They frequently experience a situation where there is no change. They come and they preach their heart out concerning the things of God, the things of eternal consequence. And people greet them at the door and speak to them about the weather. They give themselves in prayer, pleading with God that those within the church would be stirred up, would rise up and have a desire and a passion for the things of God. And they get a phone call during the week. Can I come round to your house? I want you to sign my passport reference form. Can you come round to the house? I've got a wee problem. Nothing to do with anything spiritual. They give themselves wholeheartedly, day after day, week after week, and they're met with this bland, almost unchanging world. It's so easy for them to become discouraged. Think about it. Think about how much encouragement you need in your life to keep doing your daily job. And you have no responsibility for the care of souls. You have no sense of the significance the eternal significance of the job that you have to do. Many people are just drifting along, unchanged apparently, by this wholehearted preaching and teaching of God's Word. It is incredible, when you think about it, that men can get to their feet week in, week out and open up the infallible, inerrant truth of the eternal God, and they can read from that truth, and they can preach from that truth. And the apparent, unchanging nature of the people before them, the lack of response, the lack of rejoicing, the lack of of passion, the lack of celebration at what God has done, the lack of fear of God, the lack of a sense of what God is going to do. Is it any wonder that many ministers are discouraged, depressed, disheartened? Zerubbabel found himself in a very similar situation. He had heard the promises of God a month previously in the third address that had come to them from God by the mouth of Haggai. He was aware of the task that was before him. Haggai had come at the very beginning three months previously and had challenged him and Joshua concerning their leadership of the people of God and the need to be engaged in the rebuilding of the temple. And he knew that he was dealing with a people who blew hot and cold, whose heart wasn't really in it. He's just listened. This very same day that God comes and speaks to him personally here, he has just listened to the third address from Haggai in which Haggai has pointed out that what God desires is not merely the labor of building the temple, that what God requires is heart commitment to the building of the kingdom. It's not sufficient merely to engage in a task out of a sense of duty or responsibility. It's not sufficient to do the task of building the kingdom because there's an expectation on the part of other people that you should be involved. Jeroboam has listened as Haggai has said, that there is no point in engaging in the building of the temple unless these people are giving themselves to it, heart, soul and mind. He is faced with the people who need to be stirred up, who need to be encouraged, who need to be led. And in the face of this encouragement and this leading, who still struggle with the reality of the task. God delivers here, through Haggai, a message to Zerubbabel, a message that I believe is applicable to all the leaders of the Church of Christ today, and a message that is also applicable to every member of the Church of Jesus Christ today. And that message is this. God says, I will achieve what I say I'm going to do. I will achieve what I say I'm going to do. Haggai comes to Zerubbabel on the 24th day of the month. And what he says to Haggai is, Haggai, God has a plan. And he is going to achieve that plan because he has that plan. Haggai says to his rebel, verse 21, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth. This is God speaking. I am about to overthrow the throne of the kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots, and the riders, and the horses, and the riders shall go down, every one of them by the sword of his brother. I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, and I will give you or make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you. I will do what I have decreed I will do. I have a definite plan which I am going to carry through, Sir Roboble. That definite plan involves the shaking of the nations, the heavens and the earth. That definite plan will involve you personally because I have chosen you to be part of that plan. And this plan that God is speaking to Zerubbabel here of is not just a plan that God has dreamt up for Zerubbabel or for the people of God at this time. God has been unfolding His plan for these people throughout all of history. God has been dealing with these people and bringing these people to the point where he wants them to be at this very moment in time. It was God who sent Jeremiah to speak to these people of their sin. It was God who promised through Jeremiah that he would use Nebuchadnezzar, whom he calls my servant, to take these people out of the land and take them to Babylon. It was God who, through Jeremiah, had said to these people in Jeremiah 27 that, I have a plan to prosper you. And after 70 years, I will bring you back from that land where I have taken you by the hand of my servant Nebuchadnezzar. And I will bring you back and restore you into the land that I have promised on oath. And while you wait in this land until I bring you back, marry, settle down, build houses, have your vineyards, and have a productive life. It was God, whom we read in Ezra chapter 1 in the first year of King Darius, who says, I have a plan and I'm going to bring you, or King Cyrus, or I'm going to bring you, Cyrus, and I'm going to use you to bring the people back that I've taken into Babylon by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. I'm going to bring you, Cyrus, I'm going to raise you up, I'm going to stir you up, and I'm going to use you to bring the people back to Jerusalem. And so the point we are at here It's not a point of just a plan that God is going to tell Zerubbabel about so as to encourage Zerubbabel for this moment in his life. He's telling Zerubbabel through these statements, I'm about to shake, I'm about to destroy, I will take you, and I have chosen you. He's saying, Zerubbabel, when you look at this situation, I want you to remember that what this is about is about me, my kingdom, my people, My plan and I will achieve it. I will do what I said I'm going to do. Isaiah had spoken to these same people. The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, surely just as I have intended, so it has happened. And just as I have planned, so it will stand. And later on in the same book, My purpose will be established. I will accomplish all my good pleasure. Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my purpose from a far country, truly I am spoken. Truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it. Surely I will do it. And in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, a life that was lived, what? in a conscious awareness of the eternal plans and purposes of God. As a child at the temple, lost by his parents, he says, I am about my father's business. As an adult, when his brothers, his human brothers, tried to distract him from the task to which he had been called to perform, he said very clearly to them, My life is about fulfilling the plan that God has chosen for me. And at the end of his life, he speaks about the fact that his work is finished. Why? Because he understands that the plan that had been laid before him has been fulfilled. It has been executed to every degree. There is a plan that God is working to. A plan that He has decreed from all eternity, a plan that involves the salvation of His people, a plan that will see the calling out of those people through the preaching of His Word by the men that He has chosen so as to demonstrate through their human weakness His magnificent power, a plan that will see all the people gathered in who will then dwell with him for all eternity in the new heavens and on the new earth. I have a plan, God says. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. whether on heaven or on earth or under the earth. And every man that gets into the pulpit to preach the Word of God should know that he is participating not in some dream of building a church that he has been asked to do by his congregation or by his denomination. He does not ascend the steps so that he may be well thought of or that he may garner for himself a good reputation or a position. He has that responsibility and you have the responsibility of encouraging your minister to see this as his task is to fulfil the eternal plan and purpose of God. You see, too often, too often I can descend into viewing this as merely getting you to come to church, getting you to come to the prayer meeting, getting you to read your Bible, getting you to be enthused about the ways of God, when in reality my concern should primarily be about executing the eternal plan of God. And the truth is that you should be doing all you can to encourage me to execute that eternal plan for your best self-interests. You see, ministers become discouraged. Leaders become discouraged because they look at the people. They look at the failures of the individuals. They look at the people who are not listening to them when they are preaching. The people who are hiding away. They look at the people who are not at church. They look at the people who are not at the prayer meeting. They look at the people who are not at the Bible study. They look at the people who are making very little progress in their life and they scratch their heads and they think to themselves, what can I do to change these people? When truth be told, what they need to be reminded of is that God has a plan and that God will achieve that plan and that God will use them in the achieving of that plan. And God is speaking here to Zerubbabel and he is speaking to Zerubbabel who is faced with the task of leading these people to rebuild this temple. Given all the hostility of the surrounding nations, given the fact they are still working under the direction of the Persian king Darius, given that there will be some in the community who will say we are not succeeding to the degree that we should be, Or we're not going to be able to build this temple to the way in which Solomon built it. We're not going to be able to build it to the standard that Solomon built it. We're not going to be able to furnish it to the way that Solomon furnished it. And yet, God has come to these people and God says, I will fill this temple with my glory. And the people are saying, well, that's alright for God to say that, but we live with the day-to-day reality of this thing. We live with this on a Monday and a Tuesday and a Wednesday and a Thursday. It's alright for the minister to get up, Haggai to get up and preach about the Lord will shake the nations. And the Lord will bring in the treasure of the nations. And the silver and gold is mine. And everything that belongs on the surface of the earth is mine. And I will fill the temple with my..." It's alright to hear these glorious, rousing, preaching sermons. But the reality is, I have to deal with everyday life. And God's coming to Zerubbabel here and saying, Zerubbabel, I know you have to deal with the reality of everyday life that these people are going to bring to you. I know that there will be days when you will get up and you will stir yourself and you'll want to give them a good shake and you'll want to say to them, open your eyes and smell and taste eternity. Forget about the things of today. Forget about the things of tomorrow. Forget about your work. Forget about your school. Forget about your family. Lift your eyes unto the glory and look unto the glory. Give yourself a shake. Open your mind. Open your heart. Rouse yourself from your lazy apathetic way and give yourself to it. He says, I know there will be days when you'll want to stir them up. And all you'll see is the eyes shutting, and the head shaking, and you know they'll be away somewhere else. He says, I know you'll days when you'll speak of the eternal reality and they'll be drifting. He says, but don't forget, I have a plan. And I will achieve that plan. I will achieve that plan. And how will he achieve that plan? He will achieve that plan because God says, I have the power. I have the power to achieve and accomplish that plan. I am about to shake the heavens and the earth and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and riders and the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother." Not very many conditions in that, sure there's not. God doesn't say, well if I can get together enough people and we can manage to hit it on the right day, we might be able to take on one or two kingdoms and I'm not sure, we'll maybe pick off a few weak ones to begin with and then we'll see how we get on. If the weather's good and there's enough folk come out and we can manage to muster enough strength and if things go our way and a wee bit of luck here and a wee bit of luck there, we might be able to defeat a few kingdoms. There's no conditionality here. There's no sense of this task is beyond me. There's no sense of finiteness here. This is definite, purposeful, accomplishing, defining statements. I am about to shake the heavens and the earth. I'm going to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. No one will stand in my way. No one will defeat me. It is not dependent, Zerubbabel, on your reaction on your long-term response or on your available resources. It doesn't depend on the reaction of man, the accomplishment of God's plan. If the accomplishment of God's plan depended on the reaction of man, the plan wouldn't even see the light of day. because all men are hostile to God and the ways of God. And anything good that proceeds out of the heart and mind of God will be met with that which proceeds out of the heart and mind of man. And what does God tell us proceeds out of the heart and mind of man? Only evil all the time. So what would the prospect be if God was to say, I have a plan here, boys and girls, men and women, young people, and I would like you to give me your view of this. I would like you, and based on your initial reaction to this plan, then we'll see what we'll do. that plan would never get beyond the first stage. Nor does it depend on the long-term response. It doesn't depend on a few who are initially excited about this, oh let's get, this is good, this is exciting, this will stimulate us, this will give us something to do, we'll be able to get our teeth into this, we'll be able to give ourselves to this. And yet what we find is that a few months or a few weeks into the task, the things are beginning to dry. That initial enthusiasm, oh, I'd love to do that. I would love to be involved in that. Count me in on that. And then when the reality of life comes on, the pressures of work, the day-to-day issues, then it's, oh, can you give my apologies? Can you excuse me? I can't go tonight, or I can't do this. And then what it becomes, it not becomes once or twice, it becomes three times or four times. And then, oh, you know, these things are too much. They've overtaken me. If the plan and purposes of God depended on the long-term interaction and response of man, where would they be? They wouldn't be anywhere. And what if they depended on the available resources of man? What was the point that this whole book of Haggai was about? These people were saying, it's not time yet for us to build a house of the Lord. Why? Because we don't have the resources necessary to build a house of the Lord. And why do they not have the resources necessary to build a house of the Lord? Because they were too busy seeking first their own kingdoms and not the kingdom of God. And what God was doing was God was cutting off the water source. And then when they brought in the little harvest they had, And blew it away, he said. I blow it away. Why am I blowing it away? I'm blowing it away to show you that you can't achieve anything in life unless you bend the knee and humble yourselves and seek first my kingdom. If you do that, then I will bless you. He says that not to them once, he says it to them twice. If God was depending on the resources of man, where would he be? Where would he be? So it wasn't an initial reaction or the long-term response to the resources that were necessary. God says, I, I will accomplish this plan. I will overthrow the nations. I will shake the heavens. I will shake the earth. The silver and gold of the earth is mine. What does He do whenever, what happens whenever the boys send from across the river send a letter up to Darius and say, these characters will start working again. And by the way, we've tried to get their names from them. They won't give us their names. We think you should do a search, Darius, of the edicts that were signed by Cyrus and others and go back. And what happens when they go back and find this? They find this law that Cyrus had written and Darius issues a decree and says, right, keep away, leave them alone. And as well as leaving them alone, give them out of their royal coffers all that they need in order to accomplish this task. And more than that, on a daily basis, I want you to give them the offerings that they need to offer to me. And if anybody gurns or moans about this or tries to change this, then take him out of his house, take a stick out of his house and impale him on it. God says, I can sort out the issues of resources in minor detail. I have a plan. And God has a plan. A plan to establish and build His kingdom. It's a plan that's been unfolding from the creation of the world. Who called Abraham from the earth a Chaldees? Who gave Abraham and Sarah a child when she was well beyond the years of childbirth? Who demonstrated his power to Abraham when he destroyed the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in which his nephew Lot had drifted into because he wanted to sally with the ways of the world? Who took Joseph into Egypt from the pit through the prison and raised him to the position of second in power in Egypt at a time when the world needed someone to lead the world in a way that would provide for its people. Who was it? Who was it that brought the great nation of Israel out of the land of Egypt? Who sent the plagues? Who opened up the Red Sea? Who allowed the people to pass through? Who closed over the Red Sea, defeating their enemy? Who fed them during the 40 years of the rebellion in the wilderness? Who led them into the promised land under Joshua and Caleb, the two men who had gone into the land and said, let's go in and take it, while the others said, no, we can't. Who was it that defeated all the enemies and all those vicious tribes and all those nations? Who was it that, through Gideon, defeated the Midianite? force by 300 men. Who was it that did these things? Who was it that raised up King David and gave him the power and authority after defeating who? Goliath, the giant. Who was it? Who did these things? Who was it that led his people into bondage in Babylon so as to bring them back and so that they would seek him? When they came to Jeremiah and said, they will seek me with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their mind, and I will bring them back. Who was it that raised up the whole Persian empire to bring them back, having raised up the Babylonian Empire to take them in. Who was it? Who was doing these things? Who was orchestrating nations of the world in order to provide for His people and to bring His people so that what would happen? So that His people would be in a position so that when He would send His Son from heaven to earth, they would be in that land. Who was it? Who was it that sent His Son into the world? Who was it? Who was it? that sent him to the cross and poured out his wrath upon him? Who was it that raised him from the dead? Who was it that took him back to heaven? Who is it that he sits beside? Who sits beside him today at the right hand ruling all of it? Who is this? What's the name of this person? Who is this great being who changes world events? By the power of one word. By the power of one word. Who is it? It's the Lord God Almighty. His plans and His purposes. His wonders to perform. In the words of Jeremiah, Ah Lord God, behold you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you. May this tiny wee Mickey Mouse view of God and how he fits into my life, my life. Here is the Lord God Almighty of all creation, who made the heavens and the earth by His great power and His great outstretched hand, for whom nothing is too difficult. And how do we reference to Him? My life. My friends, how pathetic, how terrible that we should reference God to me. To me. It's a plan that God has. plan that God is accomplishing by His power and it's a plan which God accomplishes through His chosen people. He chooses men and women to accomplish this plan. He chose Abraham, He chose Jacob, He chose Joseph, He chose Moses, He chose Joshua, He chose David, He chose Nebuchadnezzar, He chose Cyrus. He says here, I choose Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel's grandfather Jehoiachin had been the last ruler in Judah prior to his being taken off in exile by Nebuchadnezzar. He'd been a wicked man. The Lord had spoken to him and said, Even though you wear a signet ring in my right hand, yet I will pull you off and I will give you over into the hand of those who are seeking your life. God had said to Jehoiachin, you may be the signet ring in my right hand, you may be the seal of my authority because you are the ruler over my people that I have placed on earth that listens to Roval, I can take that ring off your finger and I can take you from that position and I can bring you right down. Jehoiachin. God did that. And here is God coming back to the grandson and He is saying to the grandson, I have chosen you and I will make you like a signet ring. You will be like the stamp of authority, the seal of authority on my people, my chosen people whom I have loved, whom I have cared for. And even though this man never ruled as a king in the line of David, yet he is included in both of the genealogies of Jesus Christ in Matthew and in Luke. Here he is, this man, restoring the Davidic line through Zerubbabel. He never reigned on the Jewish throne. And yet, in that great testimony of names that precede, that end with, and she gave birth to Jesus, Zerubbabel's name is there. His name is there. I have chosen you. I have chosen you. Here is a man who God is ministering to and God is saying to him, I know the difficulties of the task. I know the scale. I know the lukewarmness of these people. I know the transcendent nature of their love for me. I know that nine times out of ten they'll just do it for the sake of doing it because they'll feel embarrassed that they weren't there if they didn't do it that way. They're more worried about what people might say if they didn't show up than they are concerned about doing it for my glory. I know that, Sir Wilbur. I know that. But I have a plan. And it is my plan. And it is a plan that I have the power to execute. And it's a plan that I will execute through you. I will use you to accomplish this plan. I will see this plan realized. I will do it in my time." Note he says, I will take you. And he says, in a little while he's going to do this. I'm about to shake the nations. I'm about to destroy the strength. And we know that that didn't happen. We know that that didn't happen in Zerubbabel's lifetime. We know that that hasn't even really happened even in our lifetime. We know that it is a future reality, and yet here is God making this promise within a defined period of time that He has within His watch, that He has within His timekeeping mechanism that is totally different from ours. One thousand years is unto the Lord as yesterday. He will execute this plan, He is saying, and I will use you and I will do it according to my time." What's he saying to this man? What's he saying to Zerubbabel as Zerubbabel has to pick up his garment and go out and lead these people once again to see this temple? He's saying, believe and have faith. Believe that I will do what I say I'm going to do. He's speaking to Him, as one of those who recorded in Hebrews chapter 11, which said, all these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on earth. In other words, this great list of believers who exercised faith in Hebrews chapter 11, who believed in what God was doing, who believed that God had a plan, who believed that God had a purpose. They believed that God would unfold that plan and that purpose in God's time, for God's glory. And they lived their lives in the light of that plan. They didn't live their lives in the reality of every day. If you were to live your life in the reality of every day as a minister, as leaders in the church, you wouldn't get out of bed. You wouldn't get out of bed. You'd say, what's the point? I give my heart to it. I give my soul to it. I give everything I have. I give my life. to this thing called the church, which you shouldn't do, but many ministers do do. We give our lives to God. The church is merely the body in which we express that giving ourselves to God. Yet I find many men finding themselves discouraged and disheartened. I bring the word of life to them and they act as though it were nothing. In my studies during this past week for the sermons that I'm going to preach this incoming week, I had occasion to read an article or a report of a comment that the Pope made regarding hell. 319 comments on it in the Times online. I'll say something about that during the week. One of the comments struck me. And this was a comment from an unbeliever who said, if this reality is as bad as what these Christians, and I'm using my own words because I can't remember exactly what he said, but he said, if this reality is so bad, and if this salvation is so great, why is it that there are so few Christians who are actually living the life of a Christian? And his point is, if the truth of hell is so bad, and if there are so many Christians who have experienced the reality of salvation, and this is true, then why are we not seeing the manifestation and the evidence in their lives? Why are we seeing so many people saying, I'm a Christian and left living a way that is contrary to that which is so good? And there are many ministers who are discouraged and who are distressed about the fact that when they preach the Word of God, the life-changing Word of God, they see little evidence of it. They see people just flittering along, doing the thing they've always done. They don't see the passion. They don't hear it. They come from their studies during the week where they've been with God and they come into the church on a Sunday morning and they come in among people who, as I say, are still thinking about the shopping, who are still thinking about the work, who are still thinking about the realities of everyday life and who really only begin to waken up halfway through the sermon and by that stage it's almost too late. And God says to men like that, He says, I have a plan. I have a plan. I will achieve this plan. I will achieve this plan by my power, and I will use you to achieve this plan. But I'll do it in my time, for my glory. And as we look out on this week, and as you think about the people you have invited You need to keep praying that they will come. Just because you've given them a bit of paper doesn't mean anything. Pray that they will come. And as you pray that they will come, if they don't turn up the first night, don't stop praying. God has a plan. He has a plan and He has the power to execute that plan for His glory and He has chosen you as an instrument of executing that plan. If you don't turn up on Tuesday night, don't give up. Give them a phone call and say, I didn't see you last night. Ring up, see you coming. Remember, God has a plan. It's a plan for building his kingdom, gathering in the nations of the world. It's a plan that he has the power to execute. Believe that God who will shake the heavens and the earth, who will bring down the kingdoms of the nation, Believe that He can bring that person who has said to you, there's no way on the face of this earth that I will go to that church. Believe that if you pray and you ask that what they have said, that you will one day look into their eyes as they sit beside you and sing glory to God and say, I'm so glad that God has made you eat those words. I will never say that to you. I will never say that I'm so glad that God made you eat those words. But I am so glad that God has made you to eat those words. Believe that God has a plan that is for the glory of His name, that will be executed by His power, not by our power, not by our wisdom, not by our distributing leaflets, not by our handing out leaflets. He will call them in by His power. They are dead. There is no way that they want to be here. But He, by His power, can bring them in. And you've got to believe that He, by His power, can and will bring them in. And then you've got to understand that He has chosen us. Chosen us not because of who we are, but because He has set His love on us and He has given us the signet ring of authority to go out in the name of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and to call them by His name, not by our name, not by our authority, not in the name of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, but to call them in the name of Jesus Christ and to call them to come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart, soul and mind. Then watch as he builds his kingdom in his time. His time. His time. Don't say, this is not God's time now for their salvation. Next Lord's Day morning, come and say, if they haven't shown and they haven't been saved, it's not God's time. But don't say, it's not God's time before you ask them. Don't say, it's not God's time before you pray for them. Say it after the event. But say it then when you say it, say, I believe that God has a plan. And I believe that God will by His power fulfill that plan. And I believe that God in fulfilling that plan will use me for His declaring, declares the Lord of hosts. God called these people to be stirred up, to be stirred up to take that which was lying in ruins and to begin the process. They had nothing. Their desire was gone. Their resources were gone. Their leadership was weak. But they responded. They responded in obedience. They responded in love. And through the difficulties and the reality of it all, they kept going. And God kept reminding them, be strong. Be strong. I have a plan. I will accomplish it. I will do it in My power, in My time, through You, for My glory and for Your good. Amen. Father, we thank You that we are not aimlessly walking about this life wondering what we should do. We thank You that You have a plan that You conceived in eternity in the realms of redemption, Lord God, and You have ushered out throughout all eternity, through your people, culminating in the coming and the death, the resurrection, the ascension and the succession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you are gathering in your people. Lord God, we thank you for the power that you have to execute your plan. We thank you for choosing us to be part of that. We pray, Lord God, that as we go forth that we will be patient, expecting it in your time, and yet in a sense, impatient to see you work, so we might see your plan unfold before our eyes. Lord God, would you please do for us that this week. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.