If you have your Bible tonight, please turn with me to the book of Psalms, Psalm 126. Tonight we're going to study this Psalm together under the title, Desiring Revival. Desiring Revival. And so we're going to read together Psalm 126. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. And then said they among the heathen, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him. And so tonight we're going to study this passage together under the title Desiring Revival. Now, whenever I was a young man, I enjoyed watching programs on the TV that had to do with restoration. I'm sure that you've seen some of these kinds of programs. You know, whenever they start the show, they often have an old dilapidated object, whether it be a car or a building or an antique piece of furniture or so on. And all of the way through the show, they're going to show how they restore it, how they bring it back to its former glory. They're going to fix what's rusted. They're going to take off what's broken. They're going to repaint it. And then at the end of the show, they do this wonderful shot that I just love with the camera, where they do a before and after picture. And whenever they do the before picture, and then you see the after picture, you could hardly believe that it was the same object. And yet that's the case. It has been totally restored and totally made new. And whenever we read Psalm 126, it's a little bit of that kind of theme that we're encountering. The psalmist is thanking and praising the Lord for his restoring work. The people of Israel at this point had been in captivity for 70 years in Babylon. The Lord had said to them repeatedly, just as we had studied on Sunday, whenever Elijah had talked to Ahab, the prophets had been telling the people of Israel, turn again. Turn away from your sin. Turn again to the Lord. Repent of your sin and trust in Him. Walk with Him. or else there's judgment that's going to come. And you're not going to live in the land of promise. You're not going to live on this side of the Jordan. You're going to be taken away. Foreign powers are going to come and take you away. And so you'll know that early in the book of 2 Kings, the northern kingdom is dispersed. They're overpowered by the Assyrians, taken into captivity. And then later on, the southern kingdom of Judah and Benjamin, they were overtaken and conquered by the Babylonians. And so for 70 years, the people of God had been in captivity. They had been made to bow down to false idols. They had been made to eat things that had been sacrificed to the Babylonian gods, except those such as Daniel and his friends who had decided not to be defiled. And after all of this time, God makes it clear that their time of punishment and chastising is over. And so he brings them back into the Promised Land. And so as we observe how the psalmist kind of describes that experience of being restored by God, of being brought back from the horrors of being far from God, being brought back into the land of promise and into fellowship with God, we're going to do so under two headings tonight. There are six verses in the psalm. We're going to divide it in half, looking first of all in verses 1 to 3 at the joy of hearts restored, the joy of hearts restored, and then looking at verses 4-6, a desire for souls that are still unsaved. So let's firstly consider the joy of hearts restored. Let's read again in verse 1, And so the psalmist begins by identifying his subject. He's talking about the restoration of the children of Israel following their time in Babylon, when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion. The turning again of the captivity was that moment at which the Lord had allowed his chastised people to return to the promised land. And then the psalmist continues by describing all of the emotion and all of the reaction that that provoked in the hearts of the people as they came again into the promised land and specifically to Jerusalem. And so the first verse speaks of a surreal dream-like experience. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. I don't know how it is for you if you're a dreamer. Perhaps you're not a very heavy sleeper. I'm a very heavy sleeper and very often I dream dreams that are extremely vivid. And just a few months ago I dreamed that we were up in our apartment beside the camp building there in France and I dreamed that I got out of my bed and I put on my trousers and my shoes and I went down into the workshop And there, sitting in the corner of the workshop, was my bicycle with flat wheels. And I dreamed that I went over to the bicycle with my compressor, my air compressor. I pumped up the wheels, got on the bicycle, headed out the door, and went for a bike ride. And when I woke up later on, I could hardly believe it. I was so confused. thinking about whether this had been real or whether it had been a dream. And this is a kind of experience, a kind of surreal experience that the psalmist is describing for us. For these captives who were coming again into the Promised Land, coming again to Jerusalem, it was so real but Surreal at the same time, they could hardly believe their eyes whenever they were seeing Jerusalem again. Now what's interesting is that for these people who were coming back, it was like a dreamlike experience because their fathers would have described to them what Jerusalem was like, but they had never seen it with their own eyes. Don't forget that 70 years had passed. The people of Israel had left, and two generations had passed. Most of the people who had left at the start of the captivity were most certainly passed away and into eternity. And so the people who were returning to Jerusalem were the second and third generation, people who had never seen Jerusalem with their own eyes, people who had never seen the Temple of Solomon with their own eyes. These were people who had certainly had descriptions of it, their parents had certainly described to them. You can imagine the father with his little son on his knee saying to him, you remember, one day, I don't know if you're going to get to see it, but you're going to perhaps go back to Judah, you're going to go back to Jerusalem, and you'll be able to find the fish door and the sheep door, and you'll be able to go on up to the temple and find the columns and the and the leftovers of whatever the Babylonians had destroyed. But let me tell you how it was. And we can imagine the fathers describing the glory of it all to their sons. But you can remember then that the sons, as they were going back, they were going back to a land which had been utterly destroyed by the Babylonians. They hadn't just left Jerusalem as a deserted city. They had destroyed the walls, they had destroyed the temple, they had turned the whole thing over. And so as they were going back, it was like a dream-like experience. I can almost imagine as those captives got back into Jerusalem, you can almost imagine them getting up on what was left of the wall and just walking around and remembering and thinking about what had been written in scripture concerning the beauty and the glory of this city. and yet it was all in ruins. They were going to have to start again. But it was a dreamful experience, a dreamlike experience. There was great joy in being able to go back and start rebuilding what the Lord had given them. And so this dreamlike state provoked a joyous response. Look again at verse 2. It was a wonderful occasion. As the captives got back to Jerusalem, as they got back to where the temple used to be, it was a time of great restoration. They could restore the temple, they could restore the festivities, they could restore worship unto the Lord. And we can see that this joy is accompanied by a vocabulary which is wonderful. Not only was their joy so real in their hearts, but it culminated in laughter. It culminated in laughter. They were so joyous. So overtaken by the wonderfulness of being back in the promised land that they were brought to laughter. I wonder as you walk with the Lord tonight, have there been times in your life with the Lord where you just, God did something for you that was so extraordinary. He responded to a prayer in a way that you could never have imagined and it just made you laugh. You were so happy, so overjoyed by what God had done that it provoked you to laughter. Sometimes I think that, and it's not to criticise being a Baptist, I love being a Baptist, but sometimes I think that we can get a little bit cold and stiff in our way of responding to things. We're sitting there saying, Amen, isn't that wonderful? but we're not really fully enveloped by all that God has done. Whenever we think of all that Christ did for us on the cross of Calvary, how he gave his life for us, how he shed his blood for us, how he raised again from the dead the third day, how he suffered all of that, was rejected by his own people, was placed in a tomb. All that he went through for us, shouldn't it just make us want to laugh with joy, with joy for what He has done, that He will come and save a wretched sinner like me, for all that I've done, all that I, the dirty rags that I have to bring before the log, that just are nothing at all. And yet in His grace and in His mercy, He accepts the penitent sinner, the sinner who comes in repentance and faith in Christ. Not only does He save us, but each day He sustains us. Every morning that we open our eyes is a new day of grace that He has given to us. And so often we can take that so lightly that, well, you know, we just get out of bed and read our Bibles and say our prayers like we ought, and then we get off into whatever we have to do for the day. But without really being struck by that joy. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Isn't that what Scripture says? And so, what a dream, what a joy it was for these people. You know, the last few weeks for us has been a little bit stressful. We were, you know, on Sunday we shared this with you that we were praying for a vehicle, the Lord provided us with a vehicle. And then this week we were praying for a camper van, and once again, we were sitting in a car park on Walmart, and I was just so stressed, looking after advert, after advert, after advert, thinking to myself, Lord, you know, we've got the funds you've miraculously provided for this camper, but we just can't find anything to buy. What's going on, Lord? And I was so frustrated. And then the joy came of getting a man who said, listen, not only can I reduce the price, I can reduce the price by almost a third, and you can come and buy it tonight. And so just to let you know that the Lord answered that prayer, and my, all of the nervousness of it, I was in the car, so first day at home, because the little girl had gone to bed, but in the car I was almost singing with joy, I was just so happy of how the Lord had provided. And shouldn't it be like that? Being in awe of what God is doing in our lives. In the lives of our loved ones, in the lives of our family and of our children. The joy of what He has done for us and what He can do for others. We read in these verses that their great joy was culminated in the singing of songs. And it's very likely that one of these songs was the Psalm 126. A song that was written specifically to thank God, to praise God for all that He has done. And so ought we to sing unto the Lord, worship Him, thank Him joyfully for all that He has done. Another thing that we can see here, if we look down at the end of verse 2, something that I like to call the public recognition of God's greatness. The public recognition of God's greatness. Isn't it interesting that as they're singing and laughing and being filled with so much joy, they said, Among the heathen, the Lord has done great things for them. This is something that I like to call the public recognition of God's greatness. The surrounding nations, as they observed the children of Israel coming back into the promised land, as they observed them taking hold of what God had given them to them again, they took note of what was happening. Because it wasn't at all normal for a king to let his captives go. You can imagine at the time that it was very profitable for a big empire to have a lot of slaves, a lot of captives. They could build things, they could do great construction projects using the people that they had taken into captivity. And so it wasn't at all normal that from one day to the next, King Cyrus would say, listen, get on back to Jerusalem and build your temple. But that is exactly what God did. It's exactly what God did. If you read there in the book of Ezra chapter 1 verse 1 and following, Ezra chapter 1 verse 1 and following, look at exactly how God orchestrated this wonderful restoration. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. And so you see that God had orchestrated this whole thing. It wasn't Cyrus who just decided to do it. It was God at work. And that is why the surrounding heathen nations were able to say, the Lord has done great things for them. God moved in the heart of this king in such an extraordinary way that not only he commands the release of exiles from his country, now that was already out of the ordinary and totally foreign to that time period, but also he commands that the children of Israel go and rebuild and reconstitute the worship of the one true God by building a house for the Lord, that means a temple at Jerusalem. And so the surrounding nations, as they were looking on, they were so dumbfounded by all of this. There was no explanation for it. All they could say was that God has done great things for them. or as it is stated in the passage, the Lord has done great things for them. I wonder when people observe our lives, whenever they look at how God is at work in each one of our hearts, would the surrounding, heathen, unbelieving world say the same things of us? God has done great things for him. That Andrea, I don't know what he has, but God has done great things for him. Or Mark, or John, or whoever you might be, the Lord has done great things for him. Whenever people look at your reactions, whenever people observe the way you behave, the way you think, your reactions to distressing circumstances, to blessings in your life, are people caused to sit up and say, I don't know how he did it, but God must have done it. One of the most striking events of my teenage years was the moment at which I received the acceptance letter from the Faith Mission Bible College in Edinburgh to go and study the Bible for two years, a diploma in applied theology. And it was a moment that was full of joy, but also tinged with some shock and even a little bit of fear. Because at the end of the letters, this was on the 25th of June 2017, received the letter in the post at home. And at the bottom of the letter, it said, first year of study, $5,582. Now that might not sound much like you for studying, but I grew up in a pretty poor family and for us that was just out of the question. Because in Ireland you've got to understand that Bible colleges don't receive any government funding. There is no way in which I could have possibly got a loan or anything to help me pay for those studies. And so at the time I had in my bank account about enough to buy a couple of donuts from Krispy Kreme, right? And so I was there reading this letter. My unbelieving parents were watching on and saying to me, Andrew, it's impossible. There is absolutely no way in which you can go to Bible college this September. You're going to have to go and work on a farm for a year or work on a building site for a year, build up some money and then go next year. And I said, Mom and Dad, listen, God has always provided for me to this day and I trust him to provide. Let me show you over the coming months how God can provide. Now they were wanting to sell a car, they were wanting to take a loan, they were wanting to get money together from the brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and everything. I said no, no, no. There's no need to be doing that. The Lord will provide as he has always provided in the past. And so as I said that to my parents, I left the sitting room and went to my bedroom and started to pray because I said, Lord, I've put you to the challenge and I'm going to need you to provide to be a testimony for my parents. But I can tell you, and it's all praise and glory to the Lord Jesus for this, from the 25th of June 2017 until the 13th of September 2017, whenever I left for Bible college, just about two and a half months, the Lord provided every penny necessary that I could go to Bible college. There were people, they knocked on the door, handed me a cheque and left without even saying hello. A thousand bucks in the cheque. Other people coming up to me on Sunday morning, what we like to call the Baptist handshake, you know where you get a couple of notes in here and shake somebody's hand very subtly. Another hundred or another two hundred. The Lord provided every penny. for my first year of studies. He provided enough for me to buy a car for my second year of studies so I could go and visit and preach in meetings where I was invited. And the Lord provided. The Lord provided in an extraordinary way. Now that's only half the testimony. That bit's already wonderful. But what struck me the most about all of that is that a few nights before I left for Bible college, my dad came to see me in the house and he said to me, Andrew, you have proved to your mother and I that God can provide. And let me tell you, that is the public recognition of God's greatness on display in our lives. Can people when they look at us say the same? The Lord has done great things for him. If verses 1 and 2 speak of God's greatness and the people's joy, then verse 3 could be considered the summary verse of the opening section of the psalm. It reads, And so what's interesting here is that the other nations recognise God's goodness towards his people, And now the Israelites look inward, a bit of introspection, and they're brought to their knees to say, yes, the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. The others recognised it and we recognise it too. This isn't by our own means. It's not by our own means that we were brought out of Babylon. Only the Lord could have done it. And so we say, the Lord has done great things for us. Now this verse, it was one of the very first verses that Sephora and I read together as a couple, and it has become the verse of our relationship. I don't know if you have verses, life verses, year verses, month verses, verses that you put on the fridge, but for us, this one has been painted by Sephora's mom on a beautiful picture, and we have it on the wall in our house. The Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. In French, let me just give you a bit of French. And so here, the Lord's people recognised that God had done great things for them. What's interesting, what's remarkable, is that they could say this and sing these words despite the land that they were returning to. Now let's drop into the historic context again. This wasn't an easy situation that they were going back into. It's not as if they were leaving Babylon to go into a Jerusalem and into a promised land that was all ready to go, with a beautiful city, and a beautiful temple, and fields that were right on to harvest. No, they were going back into a country that had been unoccupied for 70 years. There had of course been a small remnant who stayed in the country, but not enough for the 50,000 people who were going to return under Zerubbabel, and then the others that were going to return later under Zerubbabel. This was a country where the walls were broken down, the houses were broken down, there was nowhere to sleep, the fields were largely barren and filled with weeds, because nobody had been there for 70 years. And so what's interesting is that this was a difficult situation. It was going to demand a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of perseverance, a lot of patience. It was a difficult situation to return to. And despite that, the people said, the Lord has done great things for us. We're of, we're glad. And let me tell you, it's easy to thank God when things are going well. And often we even forget to do it. You know, whenever we have the health that we would like to have, and we have the vehicle that we would like to have, we have the job that makes us happy, and we're able to go there every morning, beautiful wife, beautiful children, and everything's just rosy, and it's easy to thank the Lord in them times. But whenever sickness comes, or whenever unemployment strikes, or whenever a death in the family occurs, and in those times of trials and of difficulties and of confusion regarding what God's doing, Those were the real moments, whenever we're put to the test, that even there, we can say the Lord has done great things for us, because it is he that giveth and he that taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Think of Job, all of what he went through, all of the difficulty, everything that he lost, and when his wife said, curse the name of the Lord, he said no. my Redeemer lives. And I know that he's got a purpose behind all of this. And you know, that is such a challenge. Whenever we think about the majestic God of glory, this one who created everything, the entire universe, and who cares for us and knows the number of hairs on our head, what we can know is that he cares for us even in those moments of trial. And even if we can't see the light at the other end of the tunnel, we can still say, The Lord has done great things for us, we're of we're glad. He's proved his faithfulness in the past and I trust him for tomorrow even if it seems cloudy, even if it seems difficult, even if I don't know what he's going to do, I trust him entirely. And so we can do the same. This verse inspires hope in the hurting heart and it provokes us to see that truly the Lord is good. His love endureth forever. And so this is the joy of the heart restored, the joy of the captives coming back to the Lord. The second thing that we can see in this psalm is the concern for souls that are still unsaved. And here we see an awful change of tone in the psalm as we read from verses 4 down to 6. And so in verse 4, the psalmist prays ardently unto the Lord, What's interesting, and this is how we can place this psalmist historically, it seems that the psalmist who is writing here is someone who had returned into the promised land during the wave of Zerubbabel. because he thanks God in verse 1 when the Lord returned, when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion. And now he's asking the Lord and praying to the Lord that he would turn again the captivity. And so it's almost as if as he sits there in Jerusalem, as perhaps the building work has started again on the temple, he's thinking of all his Friends who are still in captivity back in Babylon, and he's looking to the Lord and saying Lord turn again their captivity You've brought us back. That's wonderful. We praise you for it But our friends are still lost our friends are still out there somewhere in Babylon bring them back again father we pray and so He prays for this revival. He desires revival. Lord, turn again our captivity. Look at the end of verse 4 at how he prays for this revival. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. Now, the south that is referred to here, it would seem, is an area called the Negev. And the Negev was an area of the Promised Land that was known for having these huge rivers. that were dry for a lot of the year. For a lot of the year, outside of the rainy season, they were dry, they were barren, they weren't producing anything of any use or of any substance. But then in the spring season would come the stormy times. and the water season. And all of a sudden these streams would rise up and they would be overflowing with water. Water would burst out at the seams and go into the land and even flood the land that was all around. It was an incredible thing to see. From one day to the next, there could be a little stream that would turn into a bountiful and abundant river. Flowing river. And this is the kind of revival that the psalmist is praying for. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, like the streams in the south. Like in that springtime, whenever the river bursts at the seams to overflowing. Lord, return our captivity. And so he prays for revival in this way. He's saying, Lord, I just don't want you to bring back one captive, or two captives, or even a family full of captives. I want you to bring them all back. I want you to bring them back abundantly and completely. not only into the promised land, but to you, Lord. And so we're inspired by this psalmist here to pray in the same way. I wonder when the last time was that we prayed for unsaved people, captives if you like, captives to sin and on the broad road leading to destruction. When was the last time that we prayed for unsaved souls in that way? Often we can say, Lord, bring one or two in under the sound of your word. Bring someone in tonight who doesn't know you. But when do we ever say to the Lord, listen, the whole town of Wilmington needs you. The whole state of Delaware needs you. The whole country of the USA needs you, Lord. Bring them in. Bring in those sheaves. In under the sound of your word that they might hear of God's love, of his mercy, and of his full and free salvation in Christ. I wonder if we've maybe lost that burden for unsafe people. You know, I recognize it in my own life. So often we get caught up with the things from day to day. We pray for getting a vehicle. We pray for safety on travel to the next meeting, as we ought, for safety at work. But when do we ever take the time to sit and say, Lord, unsaved people are perishing. You know, I did a bit of research a while ago and discovered that in France there's 1% of people who profess to be Bible-believing Christians. 1% only. That means, and what I saw whenever I did that research, I looked at how many people in France pass away from day to day, and I discovered that in a six month period in France, 300,000 French people die. Now, if their percentage is correct, and forgive me if anyone's a mathematician and I do my calculations wrong here, but if my calculations are correct, that means that out of the 300,000 that die, out of the 300,000 people that die, only 3,000 are going to go to be in glory with the Lord. 270,000 souls who will be in hell for the rest of eternity. Now we could apply the same kind of figures and statistics to here and come up with some kind of strategy to go about saving them. But I believe that the most essential thing that we can do to help them as we desire revival is to pray for them. to pray for them and to go out to them with God's word and to seek them in the harvest fields that are white unto harvest. Pray for others to go out as well. The psalmist, he desired so earnestly that souls would be saved. And then in verse 5 and 6, he turns again the kind of the theme of the psalm and he goes from talking about this beautiful song of praise into what would seem as a lesson in horticulture because he starts to talk about sowing and reaping and you kind of at first glance I know whenever I first read this psalm I was like I don't really see what the point is like why Why include horticulture in a psalm of praise, thanking God for his deliverance? But it actually flows entirely from the context of the psalm. As I said earlier, these people were coming back into a country which hadn't been occupied for 70 years. The ground was barren. As King Cyrus had given them enough provision to see them through the road that led back to the Promised Land. But thereafter, they would have to make the most out of those provisions during the few months that it would take until the first harvest. And now let me tell you, this summer Sephora and I planted a garden, a vegetable garden for the first time. And I can tell you it's a stressful experience. I'm going to try to do it again, but I don't know that I would recommend it. Because you spend so much time and love and nurture getting these little grains to come up in the house and seeing the little leaves. And then as the temperature gets up, you're kind of keeping an eye on the temperature of the soil and then planting your seeds, and then just hoping and praying that it comes to fruition. And well, this year we had a big hailstorm, and it destroyed pretty much everything that we had. So it just didn't go so well. But you can imagine. Now, we're only two people and we've got a Walmart just down the road, or a version of that, so it's not as if we're going to starve if the harvest doesn't come through. But think a moment for these children of Israel that were going back into the promised land. They had enough provisions for the journey, perhaps enough to get them through a part of the year from what Cyrus had given them, but sooner or later all of that was going to run out and they would have to be entirely dependent upon God for the harvest to be seen through. And so you can imagine them there. I can imagine the mother telling the son to go out and get some flour to make a bit of bread. And the wee shovel for the grain is going further and further down in the bag. And we don't really know how long it's going to last. And so we're just praying and hoping and just looking to the Lord expectantly so that he keeps the harvest. Looking, you can imagine the father, he goes out looking under the leaves there, hoping that there's no gremlins or wee insects there that's going to eat up the harvest. They're sowing in tears. They're going forth weeping because they don't know what's going to happen. But they have to trust the Lord. They have to trust the Lord of the harvest to bring forth fruit. And so, perhaps as we go into the world, perhaps you are burdened for lost souls, and you're going into the world just trusting God, not sure of what He will bring, not sure what fruit will transpire from your efforts, and you're like these children of God going out weeping. Not sure what's going to happen. Not sure if this tract is really going to change the heart of this person. And if it doesn't change the heart of this person, who's going to be the next person to reach them? With a Bible, or a witness, or an invitation to church. And so we go forth weeping, trusting the Lord of the harvest, that he is the one that brings the seeds through to fruition. Isn't it interesting there in verse 6, and this is a promise, there is in this concern for souls that are still unsaved a promise that comes. A promise that unfortunately is missing for some of the modern Bible translations and I'm so happy to read it here. in the King James. What's interesting is that that has been left out in certain translations. And that's sad, because it gives uncertainty regarding the harvest, doesn't it? Well, maybe it will, maybe it won't. But here what God says is that, He that goeth forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again. Rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. We see here a promise that is given by God. When we are obedient to Him, when we go forth believing that He is the Lord of the harvest, that He will save souls, whenever we bear fruit and are faithful to Him, then we can actually go forth rejoicing. Even though we're burdened for these lost souls, we can go forth rejoicing, knowing that God will be at work, knowing that he will bring people in, and that he will save souls even in our lifetime. And that is the wonderful hope here, despite the uncertainty of what the children of God had to do. You can imagine them. Just imagine for a moment the children of Israel as they went out day after day, checking the seeds, being patient, the amount of food in their reserve is going down, and they're waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, and then the harvest comes, and the father comes in after checking the stalks and after checking the grains, and he says, son, get the scythe all sharpened up and get on out into the field here, because things are ready to be harvested. Can you imagine the joy that there must have been on their faces? After all those months of uncertainty, after all that time wondering and waiting to see what God would do, to be able to go out, cut the wheat. bind it up, put it over their shoulders, bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. And this is the hope that we have here. Even though, yes, there's concern for souls unsaved, and we are burdened for them, and we should weep over them, there is a promise. God is still the God who saves souls today. He saved me almost 11 years ago, and He still saves souls. And so let us pray the Lord of the Harvest as we head on to prayer afterwards, that God would save people. Think of someone on your heart tonight that you can be praying for, a member of the family perhaps, who's heard the Gospel loads of times, who's maybe even been to church. but it's still hard. Pray for them. God save that person. Perhaps it's a spouse, a family member, a friend in your classroom at school, a co-worker on your job site. Pray, Lord of the harvest, that he would send people, but also that he would use us, who he has already sent, to be instruments of his grace in the lives of others, and that he would reap a large harvest even in our lifetime. Let's pray.