Our scripture reading this evening is from Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim, each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away. and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send me. And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not, and see ye indeed, but perceive not. make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, as they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten as a teal tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves. So the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." Thus far the reading of Sacred Scripture. Dear congregation, in Matthew 17, when Jesus declared the future judgments coming upon Israel, He said, this kind cometh forth by nothing else than prayer and fasting. And still today, we desperately need prayer and repentance as we face future judgments from Almighty God for our increasingly sinful nation. And what need we have then for prayer days like this to storm the mercy seat and beseech of God Almighty not to bring on us what we deserve, but to bring on mercy instead of wrath, and to enlarge the number of those who serve Him that we may not be treated as Sodom and Gomorrah. And so this evening, we've come together for a special service to think about what is necessary to save this present evil generation. With God's help, our text to that end will be Isaiah 6 verse 13, just the last phrase, "...so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." "...so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." With God's help, our theme tonight is, the holy seed is imperishable. We want to look at this in three thoughts. First, among the Jews. Second, in church and state. And third, in the individual believer. The Holy Seed is imperishable among the Jews, in church and state, and in the believer. Isaiah 6 describes a wonderful vision Isaiah sees the glory of the Lord filling the temple at Jerusalem, and he's so overwhelmed and dazzled with that glory, as he hears the angels cry out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts, that he responds and says, Woe is me, for I am undone. He couldn't stand before such a holy God. Isaiah is confronted with his own sins, you see, and the sins of his people. He says, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and I am a man of unclean lips. In other words, how shall I go forward, Lord, with such holiness staring me in the face, and I so unholy? That may well be our question too on this prayer day. But we know what happens to Isaiah, something very wonderful. The Lord comforts His prophet by sending an angel to touch his lips with a live coal and to bring God's message that his iniquity is taken away and his sin purged. And through that Savior of whom we heard so clearly expounded this morning, through a way of forgiveness of sin, Isaiah is made joyful and willing to follow the Lord so that when the Lord says, Whom shall I send? Who will go for us to declare the message of the Lord? Isaiah says, Here am I. Send me. What a wonderful response this is. And isn't that always the response of those who are wrought upon? Those who taste the forgiveness of sins? They're made willing servants. That's particularly true, of course, of ministers of the Word, prophets like Isaiah. But then God does something amazing. He gives Isaiah an incredibly solemn commission. We read in verses 9 and 10 of this chapter that God says, this is His message, Isaiah was sent to preach, but the Lord is telling him he wouldn't see fruit. Not fruits of repentance at least. The people would persevere in their sin. They would not repent. They wouldn't listen to His message. Their hearts would be hardened. They would hear and not understand. They would see and not perceive. Isaiah's message would be a message of death unto death in Israel. Israel would be gospel hardened. Israel would make herself ripe for judgment. What a message! And you can understand Isaiah's response in verse 11, can't you? Lord, how long? You see, he doesn't argue with the Lord. Isaiah doesn't say, Lord, it's unrighteous. He acknowledges by implication the righteousness of God's judgment. He knows the people of Israel, and He Himself deserves this judgment. But He says, Lord, how long? Though thou not have any mercy on thy hardened people, will they always remain impenitent? Will there be no revival? Is there no hope for the future, Lord? Will thou always chide and be angry forever? And the Lord responds with that wonderful little word, until, until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. God is saying here that He's going to carry out His long-threatened judgments. Israel will be brought into exile. The land and the cities will be destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar will carry them away into captivity and destroy Jerusalem and the temple and the land and the vineyards. The judgment of hardening will reap the judgment of destruction. God will by no means clear the guilty. And He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the impenitent children to the third and to the fourth generation. And isn't that what we're seeing so often today in the world at large and in our country also? That the judgment of gospel hardening is usually followed by the judgment of destruction. And doesn't that biblical truth make us tremble tonight out of fear of God's judgment upon our nation? How the judgment of hardening is upon us as a people, even as a church in many situations. Yes, in all spheres of society, as a nation, as a people, we've turned our backs on God We've confessed that we don't need Him, that we can take care of ourselves. We rely on our strong American dollar. We rely on the state of the economy. We rely on our advancements in the field of medical science. But God is speaking. He's speaking in our inability to win the war in Iraq. He's speaking through judgments of all kinds in the realm of nature. He's speaking through the increase of sodomy and other grotesque sins in our land. He's speaking that our hardening will bring destruction. How different this country once was when our Puritan fathers landed on our shores and graced this land. with their biblical teaching and their godly piety and declared it as a land of freedom where they could live according to the Bible and conscience. And those oppressed by other governments and rulers because of their religion were welcome on these shores. And we were known as a nation throughout the world that served as a refuge for those persecuted for righteousness sake. But today we've We've acted like Israel. We've served idols. The idolatry of theaters and nightclubs and the internet and television and unhelpful magazines and pornography and every form of mass media today is all being used to steer our generations, particularly our young, away from biblical norms and to destruction. So like in Israel, in Isaiah's day, a dreadful craze for carnal pleasure has usurped the pursuit of godliness. So words like piety, Christianity, and spirituality, and godliness Things our fathers greatly treasured are despised words today. And all around us and among us, people are striving to get what they want, striving to satisfy fleshly desires, and so there's a despising of God, a despising of His Word, a despising of His day, a despising of His ordinances. Should we not fear the Gospel? judgment will follow and that we will be destroyed? Is there then no expectation at all? Is this the only answer Isaiah receives? Happily not. God will bring righteous judgment on Israel. And yet, He will not remove His lovingkindness nor break His covenant. And we see that in the last verses. The announcement of God's judgment begins with, until. Until. That means there will come a time that the Lord will have mercy. There will come a time where He will turn His hand to His little ones again. And you read of that time in verse 13, "...but yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten as a teal tree and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." God is saying, I will spare a remnant, Isaiah. This remnant, will be subject to many troubles, many afflictions, but it will not be destroyed. But it will be like the teal tree and the yoke tree, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves." Now what does that mean? Well, the remnant of the God-fearing, will be like a teal tree and an oak tree in a very severe climate. The teal tree, translated today in most translations as the terabinth tree, only lost its leaves in very severe weather, such as a period of long drought. Yet even then, the teal tree was a sturdy tree of inner strength and long life, and it would only lose its leaves, not its life. The teal tree was famous for its inner strength. And the oak tree here has a similar meaning. It loses its leaves, of course, as you know, every year. It stands naked and bare in the winter without sign of life. The roots are in cold, frozen soil, and the branches encounter a cold, wintry wind. And yet the oak is not dead. Its substance is still in the tree. There is still life in the oak tree, even where there are no buds and no leaves. What appears to be dead is alive. And when spring arrives, the oak will bud and bloom again. Now that's one understanding of it. The other is to have it translated slightly differently. But with essentially the same meaning. This is how it can also be translated. Though a tenth remains in the land, it will be again laid waste, but as the terebinth and the oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land. If you take it up that way, you see the trees are actually cut down, but from out of the stump and the root system, they spring to life again. They are not dead. But either way, you see, the meaning is the same. And that's what Israel will be like, God says to Isaiah. Nebuchadnezzar will carry them away into captivity. He will cut them down, or they will lose their leaves, however you want to picture the metaphor. The city and the temple will be destroyed. Israel will be like the turban and the oak tree. There will be a long drought of divine judgment. Her misery will be heavy, she will be sorely afflicted, and yet she will not be utterly destroyed. The holy seed shall still be in the stump, shall still be in the tree, shall be the substance thereof. And so God says, and that's our encouragement tonight, in the midst of judgment, there is something imperishable. in my remnant. And that is true on several fronts. It's true, first of all, with regard to the Jews about whom God is speaking in this context with Isaiah. There is something imperishable, isn't there, in the people of Israel, in that holy remnant. It's even true today, thousands of years later. The Jews have a remarkable history. Calvin said, the Jew has antiquity stamped upon his forehead and his lineage is more noble than of any princes or kings. The Jews can trace their lineage back to the loins of Abraham and then back to Noah and to Adam and Eve. The Jewish history testifies, doesn't it, of God's stupendous mercy from Abraham until today. The Jews are a monument of divine mercy. Nebuchadnezzar seems to have swept them all away. They had all been put into captivity. The land became desolate. Jerusalem, the temple, were destroyed. You'd think that Jewish history was over. But 70 years later, a Jewish nation arises again from her ashes. The stump is not yet dead. The tree has not been destroyed. A second temple is built in Jerusalem. Jews return to their native land. They are as a teal tree and as an oak tree, the Lord says. Though they lose their leaves, though they face heavy drought, the winter of affliction, they will not die. They will blossom. They will bloom again. That's the history of the Jews. In 70 A.D., The Roman Emperor destroyed Jerusalem. The Jews lost their nation. Now you say, well, their land is plowed and left desolate. They're scattered over the earth. That's the end of the Jews. They brought upon themselves the curse they pronounce. Let His blood, Jesus' blood, be on us and our children. Since that time, they've been persecuted and rejected. It's unbelievable the history they've been through. I just happened to see, just last week, in a bookstore, a 15-volume set of the history of the Jews over the last 2,000 years. And it's just packed with information about how they are persecuted, rejected from land to land to land, and still not destroyed. The Jews have a great deal to do with this world's history. Martin Luther said the Jews are the clock of this world. The Bible teaches us much about the Jews and Romans 11 in particular teaches us that important things about the Jews. It teaches us for one thing that the Jews have undergone an amazing apostasy, a falling away from the truth. Romans 11, verses 11 and 12. When Jesus came into the world, we're told, they were terribly hardened. And the Spirit withdrew because they would not believe. They were left in their natural state of blindness. Paul uses the word stumble. They stumble. at the gospel. The gospel was a stumbling block to them. They couldn't see the necessity of the cross. The cross was foolishness to them. So they stumbled along. They were seeing Jesus as a rock of offense. They turned back from Him. He came into His own, and His own received Him not. So I think you could picture it like this, boys and girls. It's like a man beginning a race and he sets off at some speed. But suddenly, his foot hits a sharp stone and he staggers and loses his balance and stumbles and collapses to the ground. And all the other runners run by him. And he's left behind. But then, suddenly, when you think he's out of the race, he picks himself up again and he regains his composure and he sets off after them. That's the picture Paul paints for us in Romans 11. The Jews have stumbled, and so the gospel was brought to the Gentiles. And the Gentiles passed up the Jews. But the Jews are not cut off forever, says Paul. It's not total annihilation. It's not permanent rejection. It goes on to say in verses 12 and 15, if the fall of them be the riches of the world, that is, it opened the door to the Gentiles, you and me, you see, and the diminishing of them, the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them again be but life from the dead? So Paul says, at the end time, In the end time, the Jews will again, by the grace of God, be lifted up and they will again be blessed. The enemies will be the beloved ones, yet again. And then two, Paul says in Romans 11 that the present state of the Jews despite their enmity against the gospel, is still a state of being beloved by God. That's an amazing thing. Verse 28 says, as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes, you Gentiles, but as touching God's election, they are beloved for the Father's sake. They're enemies because they've rejected the gospel of Christ. But even as they're enemies, they're beloved. That's the mystery of the gospel. For the Father's sake, God made a promise to Abraham and to his seed. A promise of the gifts and calling of God, which are without repentance. That promise may seem to be dormant at the present time, but that's our duty on prayer day. That's our first duty with regard to this text, to pray for the Jews, to pray that God may open their eyes, to pray that the Gospel may advance upon His ancient people. And I know it seems so dark, it seems so impossible, and the Jews are so recalcitrant to the Gospel, but that's our duty, to pray for them. They're like an oak tree, like a teal tree. that is stripped and barren, like a stump, but it's not dead. It's like a beast that's gone into hibernation for a few millennia. You know what it's like when an animal, boys and girls, hibernates in cold weather, perhaps for weeks or months. It's like that. The Jews went to sleep, as it were, when Christ came. Their eyes are shut. For 20 centuries now, for the most part, their eyes have been shut. They are ignorant of the way of salvation. They don't know how to read their Bible, their Old Testament. But they are beloved of the Father. God has a great number of Jews that He will yet gather, Romans 11 tells us. And we are called to pray for them. to pray that the teal tree and the yoke may flourish again. And then the last thing Paul teaches us in Romans 11, is that there will be a great religious revival distinctly for the purpose of bringing the Jews again to Christ. For I would not, he says, verse 25 to 27, I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you, as Gentiles, should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles become in, and then all all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." Now, the Deliverer here is actually not the Lord Jesus, as you might first think. But this is actually a reflection of Paul on Isaiah 59, in which context, It speaks of the Holy Spirit. My Spirit which I will put upon you shall remain upon you and upon your seed. God promises there His ancient people. And that spear is referred to as a deliverer coming out of Zion. So it's not so that Romans 11 means that we have to believe in pre-millennial theology in which Jesus comes literally and goes to all different nations over the earth and brings in the Jews in a physical way. But rather, he will send his Holy Spirit. And how many Jews he will gather, we don't know, but certainly it will be a substantial number. They shall come to know the Lord. And we are called to pray for them, to pray to the spirit of grace and supplication may come upon the Jews. Our elder brother, Israel, we the younger brother, the Gentiles are called to pray for that older brother. But also by extension, you see, this teal tree imagery, this oak tree imagery, is also applicable to the Gentile church and to the church and state of all ages. The Gentile church is grafted into the natural stock That's what Paul says in Romans 11. And so the church, the Gentile church, was not heir first to the promises. Now, after Pentecost is heir to the promises, the church is grafted into the teal tree, becomes part of the tree. And for 2,000 years, some centuries, blossoming more, bearing more fruit, having more leaves, others less leaves, less fruit. But for 2,000 years, the church has been staggering on. At times she looks almost dead, as if she's lost her leaves, like in the dark ages, her sweet savor and power, and she stands naked. But she's not dead. She's alive. There ain't not the church, said John Flavel, before she'd be dead. The powers of darkness for two millennia have not been able to destroy the church, the Christian church, until this very day. I read in the newspaper this past week of some supposed ossuary found of Jesus' family. And we had a call at the seminary of a man, an atheist, who wanted to speak to us. And he said, do you understand now that the church will soon be dead? No, the church won't soon be dead. Aren't you disturbed? The question was asked, by this ossuary that was found, doesn't it shake your faith? No, it doesn't shake our faith. The church is alive. The church will be preserved. There is a holy seed in the midst of the church, despite all the hypocrites and nominal professors within her ranks. And that holy seed consists of true believers, and they are branches grafted into the great vine, the Lord Jesus Christ. So though many will hear and not hear, they will see and not see, there are many others who shall be grafted in. There is a remnant A goodly number, even today, even today in America. And thanks be to God for that. And in some ways, I believe their number is growing. Last week, I was at a conference with 3,500 ministers, many of whom fear God in truth. Tomorrow, I'll be leaving briefly for two days for a conference of 5,200 people, and they turned away another 1,000 that wanted to hear the doctrines of grace coming to them. coming from all over America and internationally. How encouraging it was last week to look around and see. I didn't realize it at first, but I saw dozens of men with headsets on. I wondered why. Were they all hard of hearing? And then suddenly I realized, no, they're from foreign countries and they're getting simultaneous translations. They've come across the ocean to come to this conference to hear the Word of God. All around the world today, you see, there's a people, there's a remnant that serve and fear the Lord. The ungodly are getting more ungodly, no doubt about that. But the godly are getting more godly. And God is still growing His teal tree and His oak tree. And we must pray that these trees increase, you see, that their leaves abound, that they grow more blossoms and more fruit. And all around the world today, There are babes in grace. The Holy Spirit is quickening people from spiritual death on the day of His power every single week in Africa. The continent of Africa, 300 new churches are being established. Even as the churches disappear in continental Europe and in some parts of America, they are springing up in third world countries. And the Holy Spirit is convincing people of sin, of righteousness, and judgment. Oh yes, many of these churches that spring up are not true churches, but some are. And there's a remnant everywhere around the globe. of people who need Christ, who need His righteousness, people who come to believe the gospel and repent and are granted faith in a freely offered Savior. I mean, to pray, you see. Today, that's our calling, to pray that this may increase. That believers who are the salt of the world and the light of the world may grow in numbers and may grow in spiritual depth. until the last elect has been gathered in. You see, this teal tree and this oak tree will not die until the last elect is gathered in. And so every child of God is really like a miniature ambassador of God in this world to show forth his light and to be salt in the earth. You know, of course, that an ambassador of a nation is an official resident in a certain nation. As long as he's there, no open war or hostility should be engaged in. The presence of the ambassador in a foreign capital is a sign that there's peace between two nations. Before nations go to war, The ambassadors are usually recalled. Only then does war begin and desolation begin. And that's how God, you notice, deals with nations in the past. Not just with the state church, but also with the state. You see that in the old world, don't you? After God's ambassador Noah had been recalled and had gone into the ark, a flood came. And the angel could do nothing to Salim and Gomorrah until Lot, God's ambassador there, had reached Zohar. Until he was recalled. We read literally in Genesis 19, Haste thee Lot, escape thither, for I cannot do anything till thou become thither. So today, until the last grain of the holy seed will be gathered in God's heavenly garner, the last elect brought to conversion, then the end will come. Christ will come on the clouds of heaven. But until then, the Holy Seed is the substance of the church and of the state. And why is that so? Well, as long as the Holy Seed is in the nation, God cannot destroy the nation. Though the nation be quite wicked, for He would destroy His own seed. And as long as the Holy Seed is in the Church, God won't destroy the Church utterly, because He would destroy His Seed. They are the substance thereof. You see, God's people are God's witnesses in the world with their words, with their lives, with their Christian example, with their prayers in particular. How many instances there are in the Bible of the prayers of God's people averting the judgments of God? Moses stands in the breach between God and Israel, and God does not destroy Israel as He had threatened. You see, God's people are not enemies of the state as the state so often has thought. Actually, they are the pillars of the state. God's people fear God and honor the King. A good Christian is also a loyal subject. The holy seed shall be the substance thereof. So we have a duty tonight not just to pray for the Jews. We have a duty as we face the future to pray for the church, to pray for ministers and elders and deacons and church leaders and individual believers and the godly seed in the church of Jesus Christ. And we have a duty to pray for the state. and especially God-fearing leaders in politics, that the Lord may give wisdom and grace, that in church and state the leaders may rule in His favor and in His fear. Lord, spare Thy people and give not Thy inheritance to reproach or to be our prayer. Multiply the number of those who serve Thee in politics and in the church Let Thy holy seed grow and be multiplied and grow in depth. Let Christians, real Christians, fill the churches and let Christian subjects fill the nations. Let Thy holy seed be augmented. Let the oak tree and the teal tree come alive and spread out their branches and multiply their leaves and their fruit. Lord, if Thou wilt not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, if there were only ten righteous, oh, wilt Thou not spare the nations of the earth and fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord and bring revival, Lord? Oh, friend, are you praying? Are you praying this prayer day for the welfare of Zion, for the welfare of the state, for the welfare of this church and this church's ministries? God would use every ministry for the enlarging of the oak and the teal tree, for his own glory. But not only is the oak and the teal tree, the substances in them, the essence of the future of the Jews and the future of the church and the future of the godly state, but it's also the future of the individual believer. But we'll look at that Isaiah was called to prophesy in difficult times, and yet there was a holy seed that would survive, that would be the substance of the future of the Jews, an imperishable element in the Jew, in the church, in the state, and in every believer. The seed of God's grace is in every true believer. Every true believer knows what it means to be convicted of sin and brought to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation. To have the love of God shed abroad in his heart. Christ is in him. The believer's life is hid with Christ in God. Yes, a Christian can lose his leaves. A Christian can easily backslide and become lackluster, like the teal tree. He can enter a time of spiritual drought. He can lose his comfort. He can lose, as you know, dear believer, you can lose your liveliness in prayer, your interest in listening to the Word of God. Things can be so barren inside of you. You can lose a lot. You can lose your assurance, you can lose your comfort, you can lose your sense of God's presence, but you can never lose the root of spiritual life. The teal tree will not die. The seed of God's grace will not perish. It may even fall. Tragic though it be, like David and Solomon and Peter, And yet you will not fall away entirely. You see, the Christian is like a cork. It can sink into the water, but it will always return to the surface. A Christian can even look like he's dead. He can look like the teal tree. No leaves, no buds, no blossoms, nothing! And yet be alive, deep within. He can say, I will perish one day at the hands of Saul. He may be surrounded by doubts and fears, but he won't fall away entirely. For a true Christian is kept. Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. And that power of God is so great, congregation. Do you know what that means? That power has kept you. Times you thought you were going to, your whole spiritual life would dissipate. And you would depart from God and you would return as a dog to his vomit. But instead, God used the very affliction you thought would destroy you to draw you. To confirm for you once more, My sheep shall never perish. I give unto them eternal life, and no man shall pluck them out of My hand or out of the hand of My Father. The teal tree and the oak tree still have substance in them. Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, to stick you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. If you're a believer, you have an imperishable seed within you. And that seed is so precious in the sight of God, that if one grain of it were missed at the last day, God would have no rest until he would have found that one missing grain again. As the old divine Jesus said, there will be no empty chairs in heaven. Were it not that the Lord had left a very small remnant, we should have been as thought of them, and we would have been likened to Gomorrah indeed. But the encouragement is God has left a remnant. And that remnant is called to pray. That remnant is called to pray for one another. Every believer in this building tonight is called to pray for every other believer, and for unbelievers. That God would enlarge His oak and teal tree. And that God would bring again this springtime of budding and blossoming and leaves and fruit. The Holy Seed is a substance thereof. Are you part of the Holy Seed? Now, I don't ask you if you remember the church. I don't ask you now if you believe that the Bible is the word of God from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. I don't ask you your opinions of what's going on in the world today. I ask you, are you one of the holy seed? Is a seed of repentance of sin in you? Is a seed of the love of God in you? is a seed of trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation in you. Are you one of the pillars upon which the church and the state rests? That's what the Holy Seat is. Pillars. Now that Holy Seat is often unknown to us. There can be a certain person of whom you say, well, he really supports the church. He's a pillar in the church, but often he's missing the life of grace. But it can also be that there's someone who seems to be a nobody in the church, seems to be unnoticed. And you think, well, that person doesn't have the holy seed, but in secret, in his or her closet, He or she weeps between the porch and the altar very often and cries out, O Lord, spare thy people. Remember thy holy seed. Give not thy inheritance to reproach. And that Mr. or Mrs. Nobody, that teenager or that boy or girl is actually very valuable in the eyes of God. Solomon speaks about that in the book of Proverbs, doesn't he? He speaks about a city that was seized by an enemy. And he says there was a poor old man in that city. And that man delivered the city. But no one thought about that poor man, that old man. They forgot all about him. He was a Mr. Nobody. But he delivered the city by seeking God on his knees. Am I speaking to any seniors here tonight who think your life isn't worthwhile? If you have the Holy Seat in you, your life is of infinite value on your knees for your children, for your family, extended family, your extended church family, for this nation, for this world. Pray, seniors, that God's holy seed will abound. You know, when you look at America today, and you just read the first section of the newspaper, don't you ever wonder, Lord, how canst thou tolerate this nation? Why aren't we all together destroyed? Why do we even exist? So often the judgments seem to come so close to us, don't they? Then they pass us by. Why do you think they pass us by? Is it perhaps because there's some Mr. and Mrs. Nobodies? Praying in their closets? Weeping between the porch and the altar? Isn't it because still in America the Holy Seed is a substance thereof? God is yet sparing a far departed nation and a far decayed church for the remnant of His Holy Seed. If you are a believer, no one can put a price tag on the value of your cries to the throne of grace. The Holy Seed is a substance thereof. And yes, we may well fear that God is removing much of His Holy Seed to His heavenly garner. But that is all the more reason to pray that God will raise up younger ones and put His Holy Seed within them and make them wrestlers, make them Habakkuk's, to cry to God Almighty to bless His church and bless the nations and make them burdened for the church and for the state. Oh, may God help us. May he help us all to be among that holy seed that cries out, Lord, spare thy people and give not thy heritage to reproach. There are places in America today, cities, sometimes cities that number a million or more, where you can find a solid, reformed church in the whole city. What need we have and what opportunities we have with our modern media today to reach tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people with our incredibly rich heritage. Oh, how, if we're really concerned about the Holy Seed, how we should multiply our efforts in dependency upon God to spread that seed over the earth, casting His bread upon the waters everywhere, knowing that after many days it shall be found. Just this morning, I got a letter from a minister who was at the conference last week and picked up a number of our books, Puritan books. And he wrote me and he said, where have I been all these years? I've been reading fluff. God have mercy on me. This is where it's at. Thank you for sending these books. Now I want to do nothing but read solid Reformed material. I'm on like a new discovery. Let's keep casting a breath everywhere. God will raise up the Holy Seed. Let us pray for it. You can spread books everywhere, you can preach everywhere, you can do everything with all your power everywhere, but nothing will happen without God's benediction. And yet God uses His Word everywhere to bring in that benediction. So you plead with Him, don't you? And that's what we must do. Lord, do as Thou hast said. So let's keep our hand on the plow and look to Almighty God for blessing. and ask for grace to be ambassadors, to represent God wherever we go, in the home, in the school, in the workplace, in church, on trips, ambassadors whose life is hid with God, hid with Christ in God, ambassadors who are poor in self, poor in spirit, ambassadors who hunger and thirst for righteousness, but ambassadors who are rich in God, who are peacemakers, pure in heart, and long to live to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, if you belong to the Holy Seed, you have a holy task. and the holy task is to make intercession first of all for a guilty nation and a decayed church and a needy family but to do it as we heard this morning with expectation because God keeps his holy seed and not one shall perish out of the millions of his elect So let's keep courage and do the work of the Lord and pray for growth, spiritual growth in ourselves and the conversion of our loved ones and of the whole church and the whole nation. O God, cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved when shines thy face once more. Let the Holy See Be the substance thereof. Amen.