You take your Bibles, please, and turn to Nehemiah and chapter 6. We're going to read from chapter 6 and verse 15 into the opening words of chapter 7. It's over a month or two since we last were in the book of Nehemiah. Remember that its setting is after the nation of Judah. The descendants of David have been taken away captive by Babylon. because of their sin, because of their idolatry, and now they have been brought back. A remnant has returned to Jerusalem, the temple has been built, and as we read here in the verse 15, we read about how the walls of the city of Jerusalem have now been completed. This is about a hundred years, give or take, after the first group of people have returned from exile So Nehemiah chapter 6 and verse 15 So the war was finished on the 25th day of Elul in 52 days And it happened when all our enemies heard of it and all the nations around us saw these things They were very disheartened in their own eyes for they perceived that this work was done by our God and Also in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah and the letters of Tobiah came to them. For many in Judah were pledged to him because he was the son-in-law of Shekinah the son of Arah and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshulam the daughter of Berechiah. Also they reported his good deeds before me and reported my words to him. Tobiah sent letters to frighten me. Then it was when the whole wall was built and I had hung the doors, when the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, that I gave the charge of Jerusalem to my brother Hanani, and Hanani the leader of the citadel, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many. And I said to them, do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot, And while they stand guard, let them shut and bar the doors and appoint guards from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, one at his watch station and another in front of his own house. Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few, and the houses were not rebuilt. then my God put it into my heart to gather the nobles, the rulers, and the people that they might be registered by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of those who had come up in the first return and found written in it, these are the people of the province who came back from the captivity of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his city. Those who came with Zerubbabel were Jeshua, or Joshua, Nehemiah, that's not the Nehemiah we're dealing with, it's another name, another Nehemiah, Azariah, Ra'amiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Misrepeth, Mispereth, Bigvi, Nahum, and Banna. And then you'll be glad to know I'm not going to read the rest of the chapter. This is basically a list of names, but they are important names, and important that we look at that just briefly as part of the sermon this evening. But let's pray now as we come to God's word. Once again, our God and our Father, we thank you for the holy scriptures. We thank you that they are given to make us wise unto salvation in Jesus Christ, your son. Lord, as we consider the life of this man of God, Nehemiah, and his actions and his activities, and the difficulties that he faced, we pray that you would strengthen us and make us conscious of our calling in this world as those who seek to follow after Christ. Lord, we pray that you would look upon us then in mercy and help us this night. Direct us by your Holy Spirit, we pray, for Christ's sake. Amen. You may remember that Paul, when he came to the end of his first missionary journey, came back to the cities that he first visited, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. And he strengthened and encouraged the hearts of the people. They were facing opposition. He exalted them to continue in the faith and said to them, we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. And Paul was writing from firsthand experience. In Lystra, he'd been stoned and left for dead. So he knew what he was talking about. These were the extreme tribulations that he suffered. There was a whole catalogue of them mentioned several times in his letters in the New Testament. But it has always been the case that the people of God, those who seek to live and serve God, those, if we put it in New Testament terms, who follow after Christ, you will always find many and varied tribulations while you live in this world. That word can refer to outward circumstances, it can refer to persecution, it can refer to pressures, it can refer to various kinds of oppression, it can refer to sickness, It can be used of spiritual and mental afflictions, anything that is against us, anything that we feel gets us down, drags us down. And that was the situation facing Nehemiah. There were tribulations of various kinds. Now you might have thought, you might have concluded, look the walls have been built and they've been built at such a speed. 52 days the city of Jerusalem had these walls rebuilt. Their enemies have been subdued. They've been disheartened. Surely there was a real sense of thankfulness to God and optimism now with regard to the future. Weren't there troubles behind them? Oh no. Oh no. The war was finished, verse 15. Yes, the enemies were disheartened but then we come to verse 17 and here's this man again, Tobiah. He's a pain in the neck and he is a troublemaker and he causes Nehemiah a great deal of trouble. You might have thought, and it's a tendency we all have, when you face a tribulation and then you think it's over, that's it, it's all going to be a smooth run from now on. It doesn't happen that way. That's wishful thinking. That's not realistic. Satan never lays down his weapons. Never. And I want us first of all then this evening to consider the seemingly overwhelming obstacles that faced Nehemiah. The temple had been built many years before. Jerusalem's walls had been now rebuilt. But he still faced over seeming overwhelming obstacles. Verses 17 to 19 tell us about this man Tobiah. If he had had his way, he would have sabotaged everything Nehemiah set out to do. See what he was doing. The end of verse 19, here's the simple thing, he was sending letters to Nehemiah to frighten him, to intimidate him. But then also, more dangerous than that, he was a man who had wheeled his way in to a place of influence, to a place of power among some of the nobles and leaders of Judah. Now remember Nehemiah was the governor of the city of Jerusalem. But not all the leaders were of one mind with Nehemiah. Some of them had sided with Tobiah. There was news and information being exchanged. Things that Nehemiah said and did, they were being reported back to Tobiah. And some of the things that Tobiah was saying were being reported back to Nehemiah. So, was it straight talking? I doubt it very much. Especially on the part of Tobiah. It's quite clear when you read these verses at the end of chapter 16, chapter 6, sorry, you're quite clear that opposition to Nehemiah was high on the agenda of Tobiah and those he was allied to. So in other words, Nehemiah was facing a situation where there were divided loyalties. Some pledged their loyalty to Tobiah. Why? Because Tobiah had entered into marriage contracts. There were blood ties and loyalty ties. We're told he was a son-in-law to Shekinah and his son had married the daughter of Meshulam. We don't know very much about those people, whether they were very influential people or not, but the fact is he married into these people's families and they were seemingly people of some influence and some sway. If you read on into chapter 13, you'll find that Eliashib, who was a priest in the temple, he was also allied to Tobiah. So you can begin to see the underlying opposition there was to this man, Nehemiah. He was a servant of God and yet he was facing things that he was not really in control of. You can't control gossip. You can't control intimidation. You can't control this kind of opposition. When people are talking behind your back against you and planning and plotting against you behind your back, you're not in control of that situation at all. And that is what is happening. And to make it worse, Tobiah himself was a Jew. He was nominally a follower of the Lord, because he was there in Judah. But he was a troublemaker. And as a troublemaker, he was, as it were, on the inside. In some ways, he was worse than Sam Ballat, the man who was with Geshem, the Arab, who was outside, and at least they knew what was going on with those two, but this man was inside. And he was doing a lot of talking, a lot of plotting, a lot of planning, undercover. So you have this disloyal element then, this unknown in terms of its extent, this disloyalty, the probability and the possibility that all of Nehemiah's plans would be sabotaged. And this was among the nobles, the rulers, the more prosperous, the influential people, the people who carried a bit of clout with them. And the opening verses of chapter 7 also tell us that not all was going smoothly in Jerusalem. He'd hung the doors on the city walls. Temple worship was being established. The people were appointed. Verse 1, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Levites, the priests. But we're told that guards were needed, verse 3. Security guards, wall or no wall, extra precautions for some reason, we're not told the reason, needed to be taken. They had to open the gates late in the day and shut them early, before nightfall. We're not told exactly why, but it was sufficient danger for Nehemiah to say, we need to set up extra precautions here. There's another problem though, more serious even than that in verse 4. We're told there the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few and their houses were not rebuilt. Jerusalem was underpopulated. Had a wall, it had a temple. The worship of God was now ongoing, but it was seriously underpopulated. The houses were still in a state of disrepair. You see, at the end of the day, the kingdom of God is not about temples and walls, it's about people. It's about people, the people of God. And what was Nehemiah then to do? He got these people undermining him in the city. and that there weren't many people in the city anyway. But then also, consider the overall picture. What was Jerusalem and Judah in the Persian Empire? Like a pinprick. If you'd have drawn a picture of the Persian Empire and drawn a map and put little Jerusalem on it, it would be a pinprick. It was a tiny, tiny country. on the fringes of the Persian Empire. The people had come back from exile. They were a remnant, they were a small remnant, they were a minority of people who worshipped God in the midst of idolatry and all kinds of wickedness. They were surrounded by idolatrous nations and idolatrous peoples. And they themselves have been swamped by idolatry and by their wicked practices. They've been crushed, firstly by Assyria and then by Babylon. They had a history of repeated failure. And even though Cyrus and then Artaxerxes, the great kings of Persia, had shown them kindness, they were still a very vulnerable people. So there is no question Nehemiah faced a whole host of problems, tribulations, difficulties, obstacles that threatened to overwhelm him and if he allowed it, to defeat him. There's a lesson for us to learn here, very straightforward. Everything we undertake to promote the cause of Jesus Christ in this world, expect difficulties, and expect opposition. Through many tribulations we shall enter the kingdom of God. We are not, in the 21st century, we are not the first generation of Christians to feel that we are small, that we are in a minority, that we live in a hostile world, and it's very easy then for us to adopt a defeatist mentality. Well, let's just Let's just pull ourselves together and try and survive. I would not advocate that for one moment. I do not think that is the way forward. That is a defeatist mentality. Jesus told us that if we're his servants, Well, how did they treat him? Well, servants are not greater than their master. If the world hated me, he said, do not be surprised if it hates you as well. That is reality. That is a situation that every single generation of Christians follow. So what do you do in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds and obstacles. There are two things we learn from this chapter. How does the Sovereign Lord equip his church to face and to overcome such obstacles? How does he go about that? God is concerned about us. God doesn't leave us to say, well you better make the best of it in the face of all these problems and difficulties that you have. There are two things here. First of all, see that Nehemiah is not on his own. The Lord raises up a faithful man. That man is my brother, verse 2, Hanani and Hananiah. the leader of the citadel, he was a faithful man and feared God more than many. Such men, such people are worth their weight in gold. Nehemiah was not alone. Yes, he probably had all sorts of bad dreams about Tobiah. and he had to learn to cast himself upon God. But at the same time, there were others who would side with him, who were reliable, loyal men, and God raised them up. In the next chapter, Ezra's back on the sea. And Ezra was a godly man also. Hanani and Hananiah, the leader of the city. These were faithful men. He was an exceptional man. Different then from Tobiah. Different from some of the other nobles and rulers. Head and shoulders above them because he was not going to be a man governed by blood ties and family concerns. He was a man who was governed by the word of God. The fear of the Lord. He had reverence for God. And he was a faithful man. And he just didn't fear God. in an ordinary kind of way. He was above the rest. He was head and shoulders above the rest. What does the Bible say? The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. So this man was a wise man. This man was a prudent man. This was a man who could be relied upon. This was a man who loved righteousness, a man who loved God, a man who loved the Word of God. Such men and women are rare in our day and age. And they were rare in Nehemiah's day, but God raised him up, and that is one of the ways in which we are encouraged. If you're trying to face something on your own, you know how easy it is to be discouraged. You need help. When the Lord sent disciples out, he didn't send them on their own, on a lone mission. Two by two. When Paul went out, he went out with Barnabas first of all. Then he went out with Silas. And he had Timothy, and others who joined with him. These men were not alone. So Nehemiah was not alone in his principal stance. We can never do things on our own. We're not expected to do things on our own. The kingdom of God is rarely advanced by one person on their own. There are exceptions to that, but normally speaking, it is not the case. In church history, Martin Luther had his Melanchthon. William Carey had his William Ward and Joshua Marshman. And then they were in India with him, but then back home he had people like Andrew Fuller and John Sutcliffe. We sometimes get the impression that Spurgeon labored largely alone. No, he didn't. He had a whole company of people who worked with him and for him. They were working together. The Bible tells us we are co-laborers. Laborers who work together with God, for God. 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 9. Paul speaks of God's fellow workers. That's how the church of Christ advances. That's how the cause of God advances. It is as we work together with men and women who love and fear God. You see, one person on their own is much more likely to give way. when you face overwhelming odds. It's a simple fact. You need someone else to come alongside you and say, look, it's not as bad as you think because you're actually forgetting what it is to trust in God. And you see, all of us are subject to those things. So here is the first thing then. This is how God begins to encourage us and to enable us to face overwhelming odds. He sends people who are God-fearing people to stand with us and to go with us. Now that is small, but significant in comparison with the second way. Because I think what we have in this chapter, when you look at it and see what is going on, the Lord here instills into his people, as they face all these obstacles, he instills in them a sense of their identity and their calling. and raises their morale as a consequence. Remember what Solomon said in the Proverbs, where there's no vision, the people throw up their hands, as it were, they perish. I will freely admit to you, when I came to chapter 7 and looked at this long list of names, I thought, what am I supposed to do with that? Why is that there in the Bible? That's not the first time we've come across that problem in working our way through some of these Old Testament passages. Especially as it's largely a repeat of all the names in Ezra chapter 2, just a few minor differences. Why do we have a list of people who came back from Babylon? Beginning in verse 7 with Zerubbabel and Joshua. Those are two names that if you've been here any length of time you certainly ought to recognize. Why do we have this list of names? There are priests, there are Levites, there are singers, there are gatekeepers, there are the temple servants, the Nethanim, and the sons of Solomon's servants. I've extracted that out of chapter 7. Now who are they? Well they are largely people who are responsible for the worship of God in the temple. So that tells us something. This is a people who are worshipping God. These are priestly connections. And if you read in this chapter, you'll find that if you couldn't prove that you belong to the family, you couldn't prove your genealogical line, then you had to be excluded until they could be checked. And there's a total here of over nearly 50,000 people who came back. But if you read through it, you won't get many clues just reading through. Yes, you say, well these are all people concerned with the worship of God. But there is one key verse, and it's verse 5. Then my God put it into my heart to gather the nobles, the rulers, the people that they might be registered by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of those who'd come up in the first returned and found written in it. So he had this thing that went back a hundred years when they first came back under Zerubbabel and under Joshua. And then he drew up another genealogy, which we don't have here. to link in with the existing one. Now what's he doing? I looked at some of the commentators and they bored me stiff because all they had was, well, this name's in this list, it's not in this list, here's a reason for it. I thought, what's the point of telling me that? I want to know why this is in the Bible. Why is this in the scriptures? I've got to preach this. I've got to try and encourage the people of God. Well that's not going to help me. So why are they there? I think it's very simple. When you step back and say, why would God have put it into his heart to do this? This is God's will. What is God doing? He is wanting, God is wanting this people to have a high sense of who they are and who they belong to and what they are here for. A sense of their identity, a sense of their calling to serve and worship God in a world that is ignorant of God and given over to idolatry and to wickedness. Now that first genealogy goes back to the time when the first group returned from exile. It's a hundred years ago. How many people have lived and died in that hundred years? It's another several generations on. And those people would have been born in Judah. They wouldn't have been born in Babylon. The first generation were born in Babylon. They came back. These people need to re recalibrate if you like their calling and their identity. The priority is the worship of God. That's established in the temple. Now Nehemiah's priority is the city and the people who live in Jerusalem. and the worship and service of God chapter 8 will confirm this as Ezra comes and he reads the law and brings the word of God to the people he is underlying the fact you are different to everybody else in this world you are the people of God And the Lord, by stirring up Nehemiah in this way, is instilling into the hearts of his people a real sense of their identity and their calling as the people of God. You see, what is he doing? He's preparing a people to serve and worship him and from among those people will come Jesus Christ, the Messiah. He comes from the tribe of Judah. This is Jerusalem, this is Judah. When you turn to the Old Testament scriptures, you find that Jesus Christ is promised again and again and again and again, right from the very beginning of history, since the fall of man into sin in the days of Adam and Eve. He is foretold by all the prophets. And God has a people. And he preserves a people who know their God, who know who they are, they know who they belong to. You think of men like Simeon who held Christ in his arms. And that old lady, Anna, the prophetess. What were they doing? They were waiting, they were looking for what? The consolation of Israel. They were people who were descendants of these people. Anna was in Jerusalem, she was in the temple. She was serving and worshipping God, looking and longing for the coming of Jesus Christ. And you see this is most remarkable that God should now be instilling into these people, you are my people, you belong to me, you are serving me. The fact that I've taken you up out of Babylon now, out of that idolatrous nation, brought you back, rebuilt the temple, re-established you in Jerusalem. It's my cause, you're my people. And you're going to serve and worship me. And that's remarkable because these people have been a repeated failure But even the exile had not obliterated God's purposes. But for many of the people, it had obliterated their sense of to whom they belonged and whom they served. God still has a people who will continue to worship him despite the idolatry of Babylon, Persia, and the nations that came after them, Greece and Rome. When Jesus Christ came into this world, Rome was on the throne, the Roman Empire, and it was idolatrous. And here was this little enclave, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, where our Lord Jesus Christ was born. Here were these people, and there were people like Anna and Simeon, and John the Baptist's father and mother, Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist was raised up. These were people, they were descended from these people here in the days of Nehemiah. And you have Nehemiah then, you have a God-fearing man like Hananiah and Ezra. And they're standing up against overwhelming odds and obstacles. What will raise the spirits of Nehemiah and these other men? What will raise the spirits of the people who are there with Nehemiah? It is the instilling into their hearts and minds. You are the people of God. You are loved by God. You have been chosen and called by Him. You've been redeemed by Him. You belong to Him. You are to proclaim and go on proclaiming despite all the odds that are against you. Go on proclaiming His greatness and His praises. Now does that way of looking at the text commend itself to you? I simply ask you, why would God put it in the heart of Nehemiah to do the very thing that he did? I think this is God's way of reviving their spirits and instilling in them this sense of calling and purpose and identity and raising their morale because Nehemiah is effectively saying to him, you are important, you are important to God. because God has set his love upon you and you're called to serve him. And my application is very simple. It's no different for Christians in any other generation. That is what we constantly need to be reminded of. Who are we? What are we here for? Who are we serving? One of the primary purposes of a preacher, of a pastor, is still to instill that sense of identity and calling and to raise the morale of the people of God in order to serve Him. If we lose that, what happens? We become just like the world. There's no difference. There's no distinction. We're told today we live in a post-Christian age. That means, well, Christianity's had its day. It's no longer of any use, no longer of any profit. Secularisation has been going on for centuries. Secularisation is a process by which God is detached increasingly from the centre of our thinking and our vision and our attitudes. That's one reason why we face the crisis that we do in our nation. As marriages continue to break down, as all kinds of unrighteous things are promoted Why? Because people have turned away from God. People want to eradicate biblical teaching to our children, even in our Sunday schools. There are some people in our government who want to have the right to come into our Sunday schools and come into our churches and tell us what we can teach our children. They want to bring in Ofsted into our Sunday school and young people's work. And there are people who think they have a right to do that. Well, that's nothing new in that. People have been doing that for centuries, actually. But that's where we're at. We say, well, what's the point of going on? You know, if this is going to happen, it's going to undermine everything. Well, we need to say to ourselves, but who are we? What are we here for? Who are we going to listen to? Are we going to listen to these people? Are we going to be dictated to by them? Or are we seeking to maintain our identity, our calling as the people of God? We serve Christ in this generation. How can we stand against it? How can we live if we are facing these kinds of things? Do we just batten down the hatches? Pull down the portcullis and pull up the drawbridge and say, right, we'll retire as it were from the world. What use is that? We'll soon lose our sense of purpose and calling. Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. We must stand our ground and fight. How? Only as you are sure of your calling, only as you are sure of your identity, and you realize you're not alone. You don't stand alone, you stand together with the people, all the other people of God who confess Jesus Christ. Go back and think for a moment about the grace of God. There are many of you here who know about the grace of God. You've experienced the grace of God. There are some of you here, perhaps you don't know and don't understand the grace of God. When the grace of God comes to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it tells us our sin. It tells us what we're really like. It's quite painful at times. It doesn't make us feel very happy and very comfortable. Because it tells us we've broken the laws of God, and we deserve punishment. And we will be called to account for the life that we live. But then it tells us about the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, and tells us that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners like us, like you, like me. The Bible says, when people become Christians, once you were not a people, You didn't belong to God, but now you are the people of God. Once you were living in darkness, you didn't know salvation, you didn't know what it was to have your sins forgiven, but now you've come into the light. You've come to see Jesus is the light of the world. The light has been shining into the darkness and the light shines into your heart. And you begin to trust and rely upon Jesus Christ. And that's the most important thing about you. If you are a Christian, that is the most important thing about you. You've received grace. You've been loved by God the Father from before the foundation of the world. You've been loved by Jesus Christ. He has set his love upon you. He saved you from your sins. He's given you his Holy Spirit. You're enabled to cry to your Father, Abba, Father. Because He is a Father to you. He loves you. He cares for you. He watches over you. And the most important thing about you, you need to remind yourself every single day, every single morning, who you are, who you belong to, and the cause that you serve. It's the cause of God. It's the cause of Christ. He has redeemed you, He has saved you, He's called you to Himself, for Himself, to stand for Him in the midst of all kinds of tribulations and things that will bring you sorrow and distress. But you're a Christian, you're a son of God, you're different from everybody else in this world. That's what grace does. And you don't stand alone. There's a great army that has gone before us. They've gone to glory, many of them, 2,000 years. And we shall follow after them. And if God does not send his son, Jesus Christ, back into the world, there'll be an army that comes after us. But that army is marked. They know who they are. They know to whom they belong, they know whom they serve. You're involved in a righteous cause. So I would urge you, be strong in the Lord and go on believing and obeying God's word. To be renewed, to be stirred up, to repent of sin. Ezra chapter eight, we'll see how that happens and takes place. There is nothing more important in this world, if you are a Christian, than the Church of Christ, the worship of God, and the cause of God. I know that your lives are taken up with many other things, and rightly so, you live in this world. You have to spend time, go and see the doctor, you have to spend time cooking and shopping and 101 other things. You have to pay your taxes, you have to fill in forms. You have to do this, you have to do that. Yeah, those are some of the bread and butter of daily life, but the overall pattern, the overall emphasis, you belong to Christ and the church and the worship of God and the cause of God and of Christ is what is of primary importance. So be strong in the Lord and go on believing and then be confident and courageous. You are serving a great king. And if you live a godly life as Nehemiah did, a God-fearing life, you are promoting the coming of Jesus Christ. One day he will come. He will vindicate his church. He will save us. He will deal with those who are opposed to us. He'll deal with the Tobiahs and the others who oppose. You can leave that matter safely in his hands. Don't be ashamed of who you are and of your identity in this world. Be bold. Be courageous. Stand up and say, I am a Christian. I am following after Christ. And then you invite other people to follow after Christ with you. Not all of them are going to be very happy about that, but that's not the point. So be strong in the Lord, be confident, be courageous, and then also be generous and be a cheerful giver. At the end of this chapter seven, I guess I really should have come to this earlier on, but at the end of this chapter you'll find the heads of the fathers' houses gave to the work gold and silver in considerable abundance. You see it's all very well to say, well be strong, be courageous, be bold, but at the end of the day it costs money to promote the kingdom of God. There are pastors and preachers and evangelists to support That's obvious, isn't it? The scripture is practical. It doesn't say just get on with it. There's work to be done, yes, but it takes money. And it takes the generosity and the cheerful giving of men and women to the cause of Christ. The people gave gold and silver for the worship and service of God and for the promotion of the cause of Christ and of truth. These are the ways God works. Is there anything amazing about that? In one sense, there isn't, is it? It's pretty obvious. God raises up others, God-fearing men and women to encourage us, and then he simply reminds us, don't forget who you are. You're my people. You're serving me first and foremost. But you see, the reality is that those seeming overwhelming odds that are against us tend to crush those things. Satan loves to think you're on your own. There's no one else. There's no one else. You're on your own. You're going to struggle alone. That's a temptation every Christian faces. You face that sometimes at work. Some of you men, you're the only Christian. It's difficult at times, but you're not alone because God is with you. God is with you. And if you're with God, God is with you. You're in the majority. Because God's greater than all your enemies and all your foes. But let us not lose sight of the God to whom we belong and the God whom we serve, the God of grace. He is with us. And He will lead us through all these tribulations, through all these troubles, through all these difficulties. He will lead us to heaven and to glory. But let us be faithful as we seek to serve Him in this world. Amen. We thank you, our God, that we are never left alone in this world to face seemingly overwhelming obstacles and troubles and difficulties. that you are our God and you will never desert us. You will never abandon us. You love us and you've called us to know you and to serve you. And we pray our God that we may be conscious of who we are, that we belong to Christ, that we are his disciples and his righteous cause in this world will one day triumph. and all those who oppose him will be overthrown and cast away from his blessing and his presence. Lord, keep us then firm and strong and persevering in the truth in Jesus Christ, we pray in his name. Amen.