Please take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Ezra chapter 8. And I know it sounds a bit crazy because there's 10 chapters in the book of Ezra but we're really in the second half of the book of Ezra because it's really about the two groups of the exiles coming back. The first group under Zerubbabel and the second under Ezra which is recorded in the latter half of the book. Ezra chapter 8 and we'll begin reading verse 1 right the way through. These are the heads of the father's houses and this is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylon in the reign of King Artaxerxes. Of the sons of Phinehas, Gershon, of the sons of Ithamar, Daniel, of the sons of David, Hatush, of the sons of Shekiniah, of the sons of Parosh, Zechariah, and registered with him were one hundred and fifty males. Of the sons of Pahath-Moab, Eliani, the son of Zerahiah, and with him two hundred males. Of the sons of Shekiniah, Ben Jehaziel, and with him three hundred males. Of the sons of Adin, Ebed, the son of Jonathan and with him 50 males. Of the sons of Elam, Jeshia, the son of Athaliah and with him 70 males. Of the sons of Shephetiah, Zebediah, the son of Michael and with him 80 males. Of the sons of Joab, Obadiah, the son of Jehiel and with him 218 males. The sons of Shelomith, Ben, Josephia and with him 160 males. Of the sons of Bebi Zechariah the son of Bebi and with him 28 males. Of the sons of Asgad, Johanan the son of Hakatan and with him 110 males. Of the last sons of Adonikon whose names are these Eliphelet, Jael and Shemaiah and with them 60 males. also of the sons of Bigvai, Uthai and Zavud, and with them seventy males. Now I gathered them by the river that flows to Ahava, and we camped there three days. And I looked among the people and the priests, and found none of the sons of Levi there. Then I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah and Meshulam leaders and leaders also for Joirib and Elnathan men of understanding. And I gave them a command for Ido the chief man at the place Cassiphia and I told them what they should say to Ido and his brethren the Nethanim at the place Cassiphia that they should bring us servants for the house of Argarth. Then, by the good hand of our God upon us, they brought us a man of understanding, of the sons of Marley, the sons of Levi, the son of Israel, namely Sherebiah, with his sons and brothers, eighteen men, and Hashabiah, and with him, Jeshiah, of the sons of Merari, his brothers and their sons, twenty men. Also of the Nethanim, whom David and the leaders had appointed for the service of the Levites, two hundred and twenty Nethanim, All of them were designated by name. Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahelver, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him the right way for us and our little ones, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to request of the King an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, the hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek him, but his power and his wrath are against all those who forsake him. So we fasted, and entreated our God for this, and he answered our prayer. And I separated twelve of the leaders of the priests, Sherabiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren with them, and weighed out to them the silver, the gold and the articles, the offering for the house of our God, which the king and his counsellors and his princes and all Israel who were present had offered. I weighed into their hands six hundred and fifty talents of silver, silver articles weighing one hundred talents, one hundred talents of gold, twenty gold basins worth a thousand drachmas and two vessels of fine polished bronze, precious as gold. And I said to them, you are holy to the Lord. The articles are holy also, and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the Lord God of your fathers. Watch and keep them until you weigh them before the leaders of the priests and the Levites and heads of the fathers' houses of Israel in Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of the Lord. So the priests and the Levites received the silver and the gold and the articles by weight to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God. Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem and the hand of our God was upon us and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road. So we came to Jerusalem and stayed three days. Now on the fourth day the silver and the gold and the articles were weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meromoth the son of Uriah the priest, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas. With them were the Levites, Jotzabad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah the son of Benue, with the number and weight of everything. All the weight was written down at that time. the children of those who had been carried away captive, who had come from the captivity, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, 12 bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs and 12 male goats as a sin offering. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. And they delivered the king's orders to the king's satraps and the governors in the region beyond the river. So they gave support to the people and the house of God. I think it was George Verwer who said about a Christian that he's not saved to sit, he's saved to serve. And that's absolutely right. And when you become a growing Christian, you want to serve. Do you remember the chorus, I want to serve the purpose of God in my generation? That was my anthem as I was a teenager growing up and turning my back on my rock band and starting to preach the word of God. And you know when you get into that stage you can't wait to get going for the Lord. You're just thrilled with the opportunity and the call and you just can't wait. But sometimes you have to wait to make sure certain things are right. And that's what Ezra did here as he was preparing to come with the delegation back from Babylon back to Jerusalem. He had a call of God on his life, as we saw in the last chapter. He had set his heart, prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, as it says in Ezra 7.10, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. And he had a burden to be a Bible teacher in Israel, to bring the nation back under the Word of God and reform Israel so that they were walking with the Lord ready for the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. That was his aim and ambition. But before he could leave, and he had been given permission to leave by the king, as we saw in chapter seven, certain things had to be right. And I want us to look at this tonight because I think this is a great lesson for us. If we're stepping out to serve the Lord, and there's many ways in which God's people can set out to serve him. Maybe they're setting out to do something like a beach mission for a summer holiday, some of our young people. Perhaps we're thinking about missionary work, going to serve the Lord overseas, and that's still a great commission that the gospel go out around the world. The Lord is still sending out missionaries. Maybe it's an opportunity given to us to go and minister in another church, in another town, in another place, and we're going out to serve the Lord. Whatever it is that we've been called to do and been given the opportunity to do, we need to make sure certain things are right before we proceed. And with Ezra's example here, we have a great pattern that serves the people of God for all ages, because he made sure four things were right before he got going first of all he made sure he had the right people with him the right people and that's what we see really in verses 1 to 20 in fact it really flows on from the end of chapter 7 if you come back to the last phrase of chapter 7 He says in the last verse of chapter 7 verse 28 and I gathered leading men of Israel to go up with me now you may want to ask yourself at that stage in the story who were these leading men and the chapter that follows chapter 8 then tells us and verse 1 says these are the heads of the fathers their fathers houses and this is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylon in the reign of King Artaxerxes They were the different heads of the family tribes within the different tribes of Israel. Sub-family groups within the 12 tribes. And there are 12 tribes actually still going up to Israel. It's one of the little things we pick up all the way through Ezra. He often uses the word Jew and Israel interchangeably. Sometimes you will hear Christians say that the Jews only refers to the people of Judah. Well, that's not true. Sometimes it does, sometimes it refers to all. Sometimes the word Israel refers to just the people of a particular location. In the book of Ezra it's used in both ways. And he was gathering together people from all the twelve tribes to go up. There's little hints of that in this chapter as we shall see. And he had different fathers, different leaders of those families to help him gather together others. He went for the heads of the father's houses because they would have influence over the other people in their household to gather them up together as well to come with him. he made sure he had the right people he had the people who could influence the people that's a key thing isn't it to have that knock-on effect to help with the work of the lord and in verses 2 through to 14 we have a list of the different people who were the heads of the father's houses and actually the list there is virtually the same as the list in chapter 2 when Zerubbabel came up from Babylon some 80 years or so beforehand. Some people have scratched their head to that and said how can they be the same families coming up twice with 80 years apart? Well obviously the answer is very simple that some of the families stayed behind and those same families, some people came up from them again with Ezra, later generations of those families later on. And even when Ezra came up, there were still many Jews who stayed behind and lived in the days of the Persian Empire as we see in other places like in the Book of Esther, for instance. And so these were the same families, all except for one of them, which is the name of Joab. That's the only one that is different. But there were different groups coming out. And we start off with the priestly families, the son of Phinehas of Gershom. You remember Phinehas and the great story of Phinehas in the book of Numbers and Gershom was the man who was from Phinehas' line and Gershom was the name of one of Moses' sons. The word Ger is the word for a foreigner and Moses said that's what I feel like I am among the Egyptians so he called his son Gershom. And this man obviously felt his son express that for him as well. And Ithamar, of the sons of Ithamar, a man called Daniel. Ithamar was one of the sons of Aaron as we read in the book of Exodus. And then he goes from the priestly line to the royal family and he says of the sons of David, Hatush. And we meet Hatush again in the book of 1 Chronicles in chapter 3 in the lines of Judah and David. And then it goes on with different names, Shekiniah, Parosh, Peihaf Moab, which means the governor of Moab, Shekiniah, Adin, Elam, all these names down here, the names of the father's houses, all the way down to Bigvi in verse 14. And we have different numbers of family groups with them. And so there was a good number that were going up with Ezra at that time. But when Ezra was looking at this list of people who were coming up with him, he was startled to realise there was one group who weren't here. And that was the Levites. And he thought, we can't go up to Israel, we can't go up to Jerusalem to their temple and not have any Levites. That's ridiculous. He says, we've got to get some Levites to come with us. And so he looked among the captives, the people who were still there, and he sent for 11 men whose names are mentioned in verse 16. Three of them are called El Nathan, interestingly enough. That was obviously the name of the year at that time. They had these 11 men and it said they were good men. It says at the end of verse 16 they were men of understanding. Now that phrase there is a lovely phrase in the Hebrew literally meant men who could give understanding. It meant they were teachers of the word of God. These were people who were going to instruct others. Which is exactly what Ezra's mission was. So he wasn't going to go without these people. These were the right people to have with him for his mission to get the job done. And then he had a bright idea and he gave a message to Ido in verse 17. He says, and I gave them a command for Ido, the chief man at the place Cassiphia. Now Cassiphia is a place we don't, there's debate amongst scholars about where Cassiphia is. There is a place in the empire of Persia which is reasoned to be where it was. But the interesting thing about Cassiphia is it's linked to the Hebrew word Kesef which is the word for silver. And from here, this man is able to send some of the priestly families and some of the servants of the temple and one of the works of the people who worked in the temple was to be a silversmith and a goldsmith. You'll read about those people in the book of Nehemiah. So this was some sort of place where they were being trained, some sort of seminary For the for the priest so he sent her to Ido the chief man of that place Cassiopeia said I want some men of God for this and He really struck gold because he says in verse 18 then by the good hand of our God upon us And that's Ezra's catchphrase in these chapters You'll notice it comes up three times in this chapter alone Then by the good hand of our God upon us a mark of favor and blessing they brought us a man of understanding of the sons of Mali, the sons of Levi, the sons of Israel, namely Cherubiah with his sons and brothers 18 men. He was one of the Mali brothers, not the ones from Dickens, but he was one of the Levitical families of Mali and this man Cherubiah, he was a man of understanding. Ezra was thrilled to have this man, a man of Bible knowledge, a man who could teach the people. This was a great prize for Ezra for his mission. And others also came under the influence of Ido, as we see there. A number of men who were from the family line of Merari, which was one of the priestly tribes, and the Nethanim, who were the Gibeonites, who David reinstated later on in his reign, again, as servants in the temple. And so all these people were gathered together to come with Ezra from Babylon to Jerusalem. You see what he'd done here? Gathered the right people for the task. You know, one of the laws of leadership that John Maxwell teaches in his books on leadership is the law of the team. And he says, if you've got a big task, you need a big team. He said, the bigger the task, the bigger the team. He said, but you need the right people. He said, it's no good having a good task and bad people for the task, because they'll fail. It's no good having a bad task and good people for it, because the people won't want to do it. He said, you've got a good task, you need good people. He said, and that's what you should pray for. And I guarantee that's what Ezra had been praying for, and the Lord blessed him with the right people to come on board. This is so important, we get the right people. Years ago I cut out a little piece of an article in a MAF magazine with an interview with Mike Thompson who was the Deputy Chief Executive and Head of Personnel for MAF, the Mission Aviation Fellowship. And it was called, Who do we need? What type of people is MAF looking for? And it gave a very helpful outline of the type of people needed to work on the mission field. People of skill, people of spirituality, people with social skills who can work alongside other missionaries and not fall out. I kept that, that's always a reminder of me, the type of person I need to try and be in the Christian faith. because we need the right people for the Lord's work. So when you're going on a mission, when you're going to serve the Lord in any capacity, or whenever you know somebody who's going to, maybe you're not going to step out in this way this time, but you know somebody who is, pray that the Lord would give them the right people. What a difference it makes. I remember seeing for the first time that episode of Dad's Army. Do you remember the very first Dad's Army when The instruction has gone out to establish the home guard and of course the bank manager takes it on himself to be the leader to do this and Captain Mannering appoints himself and his deputy Sergeant Wilson and they're interviewing the people and the first person through the door is the butcher, Jack Jones the butcher. And of course he stumbles over the chair, but he has sausages. And they put the sausages in the drawer. And as he goes out, Captain Manorin turns around and says to Wilson, I think we've got the right one there. And Wilson says, yes sir, I think we've got a right one there. We don't want a right one, we want the right one. We want the right one. Let's make sure we're praying that for ourselves and for others in the Lord's work. The right people. Secondly, the right preparation. That's what Ezra did. You know the old saying, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Well, if you'd asked Ezra where the journey of a thousand miles begins, and it is about a thousand miles from Babylon to Jerusalem on the route they were taking, he would have said it begins with prayer. It doesn't begin on your feet, it begins on your knees. and the preparation for the journey is preparation have a look at verse 21 says then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava now the river of Ahava was one of the subsidiaries or canals that led into the Euphrates or was drawn off the Euphrates for irrigation And it was a place where they had set themselves down while they were just gathering everybody together before they came on their journey. But before they started the journey, while the great crowd of the Israelites were there, he calls for a fast. He says, let's get in the fast lane. He says, let's pray. Let's seek the Lord together. And it says that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him the right way for us. and our little ones and all our possessions." You see, they were going to be travelling a very dangerous journey. They were going to be travelling a journey which the Persians themselves took no risks over. They had the most advanced mail system of any people, the Persians, at their day, and they had horseback riders. You can read about these in the book of Esther, Esther chapter 8. And they sent out their riders, but they sent them out with armed escorts. and they sent them out, they would travel 360 miles a day stopping, change horses, but there were bases where they could change with soldiers there because it was a very common occurrence for bandits and brigands and for armies to attack and rob people on this way and Ezra knew that the journey they were taking to Jerusalem was a dangerous journey and as we're going to see a little bit in a minute they were going to be carrying a very great amount of valuables with them silver and gold for the temple and they would have been sitting ducks for any robbers and bandits along the way. And so he wanted to make sure that they got there safely with their possessions, and their children, and the ladies, and the whole family. It was far bigger than just these people. It was probably about 7,000 people all together went up with him. And he said, we wanted to seek the Lord for the right way. That phrase, the right way, I was interested to read in a Jewish translation of this into English. They translated it for a smooth journey. Travelling mercies, as my dad used to pray for as a salesman every morning. When out on the road, pray for travelling mercies. That's what he was praying for, a smooth and safe journey. And very rightly so. Now the king had offered to give him an escort, like Nehemiah was given an escort from Artaxerxes in Nehemiah chapter 2. But Esther turned down that escort because he had already boasted of the protection of the Lord. He had said to the king in verse 22, halfway down, he says, the hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek him. That's the key bit, who seek him. Those who are people of prayer, they know his protection, they know his power, they know his help. But his power and wrath are against all those who forsake him. So he was confident that the Lord would be with them if they prayed and would protect and be against their enemies if they prayed. And so he turned down the offer of an escort. That doesn't mean it's always wrong to do that as Nehemiah accepted it. But Ezra felt that was the way he wanted to glorify the Lord to the king. So he said in verse 23, so we fasted and entreated our God for this. and they sought him and their prayer was answered it says there and he answered our prayer when we come down to verse 31 we see later on that they made that great journey it says then we departed from the river Ahiva on the 12th day of the first month to go to Jerusalem and the good hand the hand of our God was upon us and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambush along the road So we came to Jerusalem, stayed there three days. Do you realise that's 900 miles in two verses? He never mentioned the journey, he just told us God's hand was upon us and we got there safely and we were able to have three days rest when we got there. And that was because they laid a good foundation in prayer before they went. They did their preparation, they prayed. before they went on their journey and you know what friends that's the best foundation we can lay when we're going out to serve the Lord if we're going out to serve the Lord on the mission field don't go out unless you're a person of prayer and you prayed about it at home first of all before going I'm sure nobody would really think about doing that but that's such a an important step to make. If we're going on a beach mission, don't just sign up for it and think, oh, it'll be great to go off down to Weymouth this summer or down to Cornwall this summer and go on a beach mission, unless you've really prayed about it and sought the Lord. Don't go even as a visiting preacher, unless you have prayed about it. Pray for traveling safety. every time. Pray for the Lord's blessing on it. If we want success, we must come to the Lord in prayer. The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek him. That's the preparation we must lay. And that goes throughout all the Lord's work. Colin blessed me this week by giving me a little magazine that had in it a letter from some missionaries in Kenya who were coming home on furlough to visit churches in this country and on their way they had to stop. They were coming from Mombasa and they had to stop at a particular place overnight so they could make it to the airport in time for their flight in the morning and they woke up in the morning and they found their apartment had been burgled and a rucksack with their passports, their tickets, their money, gone. They were What are we going to do? What are we going to do? And they phoned the embassy and they could get a ticket, they could get a passport in so many days and it would cost, I can't remember, I think it was £800 or something like this. They prayed about it. They had prayed before they'd set out. They carried on in prayer and they felt peace and confidence. And then they had a knock on the door from the hotel manager. And he said, Sir, would you just come with me a minute? And they went to the to a place in the hallway where there was some stairs and the man pointed to some folders and pieces of paper. He said, are these yours? I couldn't believe it. It was the paperwork, nothing was missing. The passports, the tickets, everything was there. True story. God answered their prayer. They'd laid a foundation of prayer and they made their plane and they got home. Isn't that wonderful? But that's the power of prayer. For they sought the Lord, the Lord's blessing. was upon it. How important it is that we lay those foundations and preparations in prayer. Third thing, he had not only the right people, he had not only the right preparations, he had the right principles. Because in verse 24 to 34 we see the account of Ezra bringing up the great wealth that Artaxerxes had given Ezra for the work of the house of the Lord now I won't go into this now But if you go back over chapter 7 when you get home, you'll see how Ezra's eyes must have gone very wide They must have popped out of his head when he read this letter from Artaxerxes about all the wealth he was giving Ezra of for the work of the house of God in the temple. And he was giving him wealth that, you know, any church treasurer would just rejoice to have for the Lord's work. But that was to be carried by Ezra and these people up to Jerusalem. Some of that was the silver and gold that had been reclaimed from the temple that the Babylonian Empire had taken into captivity and was now being returned. and it was being given to Ezra to take up to Jerusalem with him. Well Ezra had a good reputation with the king and he wanted to keep that and so he was a man of principle and he wanted this handled rightly so he would have a good reputation still with the king. And so what he did was in verse 24 he says, I separated 12 of the leaders of the priests, Sherabiah, Hashabiah and 10 of their brethren with them. So those are Those are the two men and their ten brethren, that's the twelve leaders. That's recognised as being one man representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel. It's one of those little hints I was telling you about. And he says in verse 25, and weighed out to them the silver and gold and the articles, the offering for the house of our God, which the king and his counsellors and his princes and all Israel who were present had offered. And he weighed it out and he gave it into their hands. And there's a huge amount of tons and tons and tons of silver and gold that they were going to carry. And they weighed it out and took the measurements and handed it over. And he says in verse 28, I said to them, you are holy to the Lord. And the articles are holy also. Now what he's pointing out is that these men were priests. I don't know if you remember the high priest, he had a special hat that looked like a turban really and it had a golden crown on the top. And the golden crown said as we read in Exodus 28, holy to the Lord. Holiness to the Lord. The priests were set apart to the Lord. for his service. And not only that but the things that were in the temple were set apart to the Lord too. Zechariah 14 tells us in the temple things were labelled holiness to the Lord. They had to let a cough on them. For Kodesh, holy. You didn't use that for your beans on toast. That was kept for the things of the sacrifices. It was separate. It was holy. It was different. And so he said you're holy and these are holy and you ought to be the ones to carry them up." Now he wasn't passing the buck, he was doing what Moses did. Numbers 4 tells us that the priests were given the responsibility for carrying the articles of the tabernacle, the wealth, up. They were the ones sanctified for that task. And he trusted it to these men and their brethren to do that. And he says to them in verse 29, a great command, watch and keep them until you weigh them before the leaders of the priests and the Levites. and head to the fathers' houses of Israel in Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of the Lord." And he gave it to them. And when he got up to Jerusalem then, they measured it out again in verse 31, into the hands of Merimoth, the son of Uriah the priest. And we read about Merimoth again in the book of Nehemiah. He was one of the priests who helped build the wall. They measured it out back to them and there was a docket written in verse 34. It says, with the number and weight of everything, all the weight was written down at that time. So he made sure it was measured before, measured at the end and the docket was written and it went back to the king to say it all got here safely. So the king could see there had been absolute principle in the handling of the finances. Nobody had done anything wrong. It hadn't been squandered along the way, it hadn't gone into people's pockets, it had got there safely as it was committed to that task. And that is another great thing for us when we're stepping out for service, to have the right principles, isn't it? Especially principles regarding finances. You know, isn't it a shame and a disgrace that today the Church has been shamed for its handling of money? over the years with people who in the Church of England, you know, I'm just telling you stories I've read in the paper that I've read about, of vicars who've squandered it. I mean, there's been the prosperity preachers in America and so forth. I remember Bob Hope telling the story about the vicar who used to go to the races and after the Sunday morning, went to the races with the offering and he saw down on the race course, he saw a Roman Catholic priest. And he saw him go up to one of the horses and bless the horse. And he thought, well, that's an interesting thing. And he watched, and that horse won the race. He saw the Roman Catholic priest go up to the next race, go up to the next horse, and bless the horse. And that horse won the race. And he thought, well, this isn't gambling. He said, this is a sure thing. He saw the third one go up to a third horse. And he thought, I'm going to take all the offering. I'm going to put it all down on that horse. And I'll make some money for me. The church will have some money. It will all be great. And the horse fell over and died. didn't win the race at all. And he was in despair. He went up to the priest and said, what happened? He said, I saw you bless the first two horses. They won the race. The third one fell over and died. And the Roman Catholic priest turned around and said to him, you must be a Baptist. He said, well, yes, I am, actually. How did you know? He said, well, if you'd been a Catholic, you'd known the difference between a blessing and the last rites. But he was mishandling the finances. And those sort of things have happened. We need to be careful. You know, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, if anyone, that we are to do it right, not only in the eyes of the Lord, but in the eyes of all the people. And we have to handle money rightly. And let's also remember that we have been entrusted with a spiritual responsibility too. You know, the Lord spoke to me through this passage about these vessels. You know what a vessel is in Scripture? A vessel is a picture of a Christian. What does Paul say in 2 Corinthians 4? We have this treasure in Earthen vessels, you know, the powers of God and all of us. It's a picture of the Christian life. Anyone who sacrifices himself for the work of the Lord, he'll be a clean vessel, useful for the work of the house of God. Vessels are pictures of people. And you have been entrusted to me, your pastor. And the Lord's weighed you out. And when you get home to glory, he'll weigh you in. Are they underfed? Are they undernourished? Are they missing? You see the responsibility this is a picture of for those in the work of the Lord. Deacons and pastors, this is something for us to take seriously. The gospel itself has been entrusted to us. Paul said to Timothy, what I receive from the Lord I pass on to you. And I trust it to you. Jude said, you know, let's contend for the faith which has been entrusted to all the saints. It's been entrusted to us. The gospel has been entrusted to us. That we may deliver it safely to the next generation. Let's make sure we hand it all down. Not just our favourite bits. Miss off the H word. And say, Jesus just saved you from a lost eternity. Let's sell them. Jesus will save you from hell. By his blood. On the cross. if you come to him in repentance and faith, and make him your Lord, not your friend and saviour, your Lord and saviour. That's what scripture says. Make sure we give them the gospel. It's entrusted to us. We have a responsibility. Let's have the right principles when we're going to the Lord's work. And finally, before your patience wears out and my voice wears out, let's just see the last thing, which is the right purpose. Verse 35 and 36, the children of those who had been carried away captive, who had come from the captivity, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel. And then it lists them out there, including 12 bulls for all Israel. There you go, one for each of the 12 tribes. Again, another reference. And then in verse 36 it says, and they delivered the king's orders to the king's satraps, which were a type of ruler, and the governors in the region beyond the river. So they gave support to the people in the house of God. Their purposes were to serve God and serve the king, and they kept their purposes clear. God came first. When they came up, the first thing they did was offer God his sacrifices. The second thing they did was then deliver the king's orders. They had clear purposes why they were going, and they stuck to it. You know, one of the things we need to do is keep the main thing the main thing. keep the gospel and the work Jesus gave to us at the beginning, to go into all the world and preach the gospel and teach those things which he had commanded us. Those are the things we must do and keep those priorities right. Otherwise we'll find ourselves doing things we were never called to do. I often wonder how the man who wrote Thomas the Tank Engine ended up writing Thomas the Tank Engine because he was a minister. I often wonder how the man who wrote The Water Babies ended up writing The Water Babies because he was a minister. These men obviously had more time on their hands than I do. Why? They lost sight of their vision, their calling, what they were led to do. May God have mercy upon us and help us to have the right purpose and stick to it.