Mark, would you come and lead us in praying for Alex as we get ready to hear the Word tonight? Our Lord, our Heavenly Father, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, our Lord and Savior, we thank You. We thank You for Your salvation. We thank You for the time we have together to be a church, to learn of You, Lord, to learn how to glorify you as a church, to go out and do the things you have for us to do, to take your word of salvation to the other most parts of the world. Lord, help us now, tonight, to not only to worship you, but to follow the precepts that you've put before us. Lord, it takes a church to people in the field, Lord. And if we do as you say, to love one another, We will build a church that will bring glory to you. Be with Alex tonight. Put your words in his heart and in his mind, that his words would be to your glory, that we would follow them, that we would do the things that you would have us to do within the church and within the neighborhood and within the nation and within the world. Lord, we thank you for tonight. We thank you for Alex. Bless him, Lord, in your name we pray. Amen. So there are several things that I want to accomplish tonight. The Lord will decide whether they all get accomplished, so I'm not worried about it. But I did pray before, and particularly before, but several days ago too, that what we talked about tonight, if it were to be the last time that I was ever going to get to say anything to you, I want to talk to you like that. And the reason for that is because, well, let's just do this this way. Let's just consider this our little family meeting. It's already been that. So let's just get that in our mind and hearts and think about it that way. So we're gonna do a few things tonight. The first thing that we're gonna do is we want to talk about and remind ourselves about who brings people to Christ. How do people become saved? This is what we want, right? The theme is to the ends of the earth. So how does that happen? And when we look around, and this is why I started the way I did, when we look around at one another, And what we have here, if you're standing where maybe some of these people who drive by, and they're driving by and they look at us, no offense to any of you here, but we sort of look a little pathetic, honestly. I don't mean that in any kind of an insulting way, but we, I mean, this is your church. From the outside, there's not much to look at in one sense here. I understand that. And yet I believe that it's all under God's sovereignty and that the truth of the matter is, is that where we are and who we are is exactly who we're supposed to be right now. And ultimately we want to, we want to grow and we want to change. We want to become more Christ-like and we want to glorify God in in better ways than we do now, but just to say that, we don't all together know what that looks like as we do it, right? I mean, God will do that. We need to trust him. And so we're going to begin tonight in Acts chapter eight, if you have, 18, if you have a Bible, please, Acts chapter 18. Acts chapter 18, we will begin in verse one. And we will read a bit of this. Corey was in Acts, and I hope to build on some of what he said. Verse one, after this Paul left Athens, and he went to Corinth, and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. and he went to see them. And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and he worked, for they were tent makers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks." Verse five. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed him and reviled him, He shook out his garments and said to them, your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. And he left there and went into the house of a man named Titius, Justice, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing Paul, believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent. For I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you. For I have many in this city who are my people. And he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. Would you pray with me? Father, I ask that you would bless the preaching of your word. Lord, be gracious to your people and speak to them tonight. God, I pray if there are hard hearts here and ears that are stopped up and eyes that can't see, Lord, if there are folks here that are in discouragement, if there are difficulties that seem insurmountable. Lord, I pray that you would speak into those situations and that you would bring your truth to bear on them. Lord, be glorified in our meeting. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As we look at this passage, I'm not going to go through it and exegete it completely, but I want to talk a little bit about it. Paul leaves Athens and he goes to Corinth. And he meets a couple of helpers, a husband and a wife. And all of this came together because the emperor had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He got tired of them. So the city of Rome, they couldn't be there anymore. So what you've got is a dispersal. They're leaving and they're going other places. This God sovereignly sets up in a way so that Paul can meet these fellow workers, Aquila and Priscilla. And it just so happens, because everything happens by coincidence, that they actually do the same thing for a living, which is making tents. If you believe that, you can believe that if you would like to believe that. I will choose not to. So he's working with them. And as he's working, he's working, making himself a living, and he's going into the synagogue every Sabbath. And what is he trying to do? He's trying to persuade the Jews and the Greeks that Jesus is the Messiah, right? Because the Jews particularly in the Sabbath, had a basis in the word of God. They were looking for the Messiah to come, and Paul's job was to tell them the Messiah has come, and this is who he is. Well, he gets a couple of more helpers. Silas and Timothy show up in verse five. And when they get there, Paul has switched over mostly to just dealing with the word, and he's testifying to the Jews. Again, he keeps on doing that, But they don't like it very much. It insults them. And they revile him. And they kick him out. And they oppose him. And the way that looks, by the way, because we could pass over it, if you think about it, you'll understand what that looks like. You got all of these groups over in the corner. And they're doing this stuff over here. And some of them are doing this stuff over here. There's gossip going on, and people are speaking against what he's saying and saying he doesn't know what he's talking about. They're opposing him, and they don't want to let him in the synagogue anymore. Well, he finally has enough. They won't listen to him anymore. So he shakes the garments off. That's the way they would do things, to demonstrate that they were done in that place. He said, I'm innocent. I told you the truth. I preached the gospel to you. I gave you the word of God and you didn't want it. So now I'm going to go to the Gentiles. Now in verse seven, we'll have a few more coincidences, but I believe that our Lord has a sense of humor and sometimes in the ways that he does things. So he says, he goes to there, he leaves the synagogue and where does he go? Next door. Paul goes next door to the guy's house, next door to the synagogue. He goes there. And he gets him to there, and so he's going to preach there. Well, in verse 8, the ruler of the synagogue gets saved. So Paul is in the synagogue, and they hate him there, and they won't listen to him. So he goes next door into a place where they won't listen to him. And while this is going on, The ruler, the leader in the synagogue and his whole family comes to Christ. I'm sure that's all coincidence as well. It's probably not orchestrated by anyone. It's just a matter of happenstance, right? Maybe Paul planned it. Maybe he decided that what he was going to do is those Jews can act like that. I'm just going to go next door. Well, that might be something I would do, but of course the logistics of that are a little bit of a problem if the guy next door doesn't want to let you into his house. But it just so happens that the guy next door is a guy who is worshiping God. But then, out of the very synagogue, that rejects him, that wants to hurt him for preaching the gospel The ruler of the synagogue and his whole household gets saved. This is the kind of God that we serve. These are the kinds of things that he does. Well, many of the Corinthians, there it says, were hearing Paul and they believed and they were baptized. Now, you can imagine that although there are people coming to Christ, there's opposition in this circumstance, right? There are problems. And in any sort of situation, I don't know if you guys have recognized this or not, but in any sort of situation in which you're dealing with people, there is the chance to be discouraged. In fact, there is the probability that at some point in time, you're going to be discouraged by dealing with people because people are, Well, they're like me. They don't do what they're supposed to do a lot of the times. And so he's got enemies and he's got these new converts that he's dealing with. And so the Lord, in his graciousness to his servant Paul, gives him a vision and he says something to him. He says, don't be afraid. One of the biggest issues in our lives, even as believers, are the things that we are afraid of. We are afraid of many things. Now, we act pretty tough, and we act like we're not scared of anything. And of course, we've got a little bit of a theology and a little bit of understanding of scripture that tells us that we're not supposed to be afraid. But when we're honest, there are things that we're afraid of. Paul had legitimate things to be afraid of. You can read it. They beat him and stoned him. When he wasn't doing that, the weather was trying to kill him. It was constant. We have things to be afraid of. In our time, a lot of the thing that we're afraid of is that we're afraid of rejection. We're afraid of losing our identity. We're afraid that people won't think of us the things that we want them to think of us. We're afraid that we're not going to be successful. We're afraid that we're not going to do it right, whatever it is. We're afraid that we're going to be found lacking in some way. And so what we do is we attempt to try to put up these walls around us so that we can look as though we're being successful. We build systems in our own lives in order to make ourselves successful. But maybe sometimes those systems and those things don't have much to do with what scripture actually says that our lives are supposed to be about. something to think about. I could preach more there, but I'm not going to do it. Let's move on to what the Lord told Paul. What does he tell him? He says, go on speaking. Don't be silent. So here's the thing. The old axiom is true for most of us, all of us at one point, and some of us more than others, and I will own it. If the biggest thing that gets you in trouble is your mouth, if you want to run your mouth, You're going to get in trouble, right? Well, in Paul's case, this was true, but he was speaking the word of God. He was speaking the gospel. You don't want to be afraid. You don't want to have people think badly of you. You don't want to be heard in some way. You don't want to be rejected. You don't want to have problems. Just quit talking and you'll be fine. And the problem is, brothers and sisters, is that many of us have stopped speaking. I don't mean us in this group, but there may be some here. You need to own that if it's yours. There are times when you know better. You ought to say something and you don't do it because you're afraid. I know what that is. I've been there. I have this thing that I want people to think that I have to battle against all of the time, but Paul's message from the Lord was a command. He said, don't be afraid. Keep speaking. Keep giving them the word. And then he gives him a promise. He says, I'm with him. I'm with you. And no one's going to attack you to harm you. Now, he didn't mean for in perpetuity, right? I mean, if you go down, we won't do it now. But if you go down not very much further, when Paul goes to another place, he's back being attacked again. The Lord didn't make this promise. It wasn't just carte blanche promise that just said, OK, you're going to be safe forever. You'll be prosperous. And your tent business is going to have franchises in every city. No, that wasn't what it was. It was just for this time, you're going to preach the word. And I'm going to give you some space to do that. And here is the reason. I have many in this city who are my people. And he stayed a year and six months there. And he taught the word of God among them. We can go to a lot of other places, I think, but this will suffice. We may look at some other scriptures in a bit. When the Lord tells Paul that he has many people in that city, the truth is he couldn't have many people if we looked at those people as being converted, saved people that were part of a church. That was growing, right? That was coming together. There were starting to be people baptized and believed. But what the reason that the Lord gave Paul this command is because he wanted him to stay there and preach the gospel. so that more would come to Christ. And he wanted to establish a church. That's what he wanted to do. And we have letters to that church in the New Testament, first and second Corinthians, right? So here's the deal. The Lord says, you stay there because I've got people in this city. What does it mean? It means this. And it will make the application in a moment. It means this. It means that there are people out there, Paul, that when you preach the gospel to them, I'm going to open their hearts and they're going to repent and they're going to believe it. That's what Paul is being told. When the Lord says that to his servant, can you imagine the kind of boldness then that Paul would have from that? If you're told, you keep doing it because there are people here that I want to do something with. That was the message to Paul. There are people here that are going to glorify my name. There are people here that are going to be converted and they're going to be my people all out into eternity. So Paul, you stay there and you preach and you teach and you grind it out and you work. Sometimes the easiest thing When in any given situation, when things get hard, it's just to go find you a new situation, right? That's a lot of what we do sometimes. Even relationships, you don't people like that. They kind of go from one to the next to the next. And, you know, because everybody's friendly and kind of nice, they start out okay. But once we get to know each other, not so much anymore. All right, here's the application. If we are faithful in our proclamation of the gospel as individuals and as a church, and I want to get into more of what that means in a moment, but if we are faithful in that, God has people who are going to be blessed and are going to be converted by that. Now you say, well, you're not telling us something we don't already know. Yeah, maybe, but we need to be reminded because here's the bottom line. It's not happening quite as quickly as we would all like for it to happen, is it? We don't have hordes of people knocking down the door coming to coming to hear the word of God being preached. We get one here and another there sometimes and then And then sometimes we think they're doing pretty good, and they prove they're not doing very good at all, right? And kind of have to start over and start again in other places, and it's difficult. And we don't understand the sovereignty of God in these things. But we have, as individuals in a church, we have got to base our faith, and therefore who we are and what we do, on the sovereignty of Almighty God. that he knows what he's doing. Because if it's left to me to figure out what we ought to do, that's not going to work. I don't have any clue how to do that. So with the next part of this, I want to talk to us very specifically about a few things that I see about us. In some respects, this may sound a bit boastful. I don't mean it to. I want to boast in the Lord. But I want to boast in you. I want to boast in what He's done here. Because sometimes when we look at the outward, we may forget to look at what God has done and what He is doing. We may forget what He has given us to do. We might not even see it. In other words, sometimes our biggest problem is in our individual lives, but I think sometimes as a church, I do this. I want, I think I know what it would look like if God were to work a work and I want to see that. And here all the time, God is over here doing what it is he wants to do, but I don't think that's the way it ought to go. So I can't see it because I'm looking for this thing over here that I think it ought to be, right? We need to not do that. We need to look at ourselves. We need to give God glory for what he's done. And we need to ask him to do more. So our theme is to the ends of the earth. So I want to talk for a moment about how we have been involved in some of that. So first of all, in our community, I didn't ask their permission to do this because they probably told me no. So I'm just going to do it anyway. We have a family here. who came to Christ due to the graciousness of the Lord as administered through this fellowship of believers. And they drove hundreds of miles to be here with us today. The Saladins, my brother and sister, you're a blessing to us, and we thank you for being here. But the thing is, folks, it hasn't been just them. But if it had been, is that not enough? Is all the toil and the striving and the difficulty and the problems, is that not enough? That it was just Him? And yet it hasn't been. And so God does use us in that way. We've seen it through the past. No, it doesn't happen as much as we would like it to happen. But it happens. And not only that, But then when it happens, they come into a faith family that God has designed. Now, I want to be really clear here. This wasn't like that Norman and Ron and I made a plan and determined how we were going to do this. And we're now seeing that plan being executed to perfection. I assure you, there is no plan like that. The only plan that we have is we are We're going to preach the word of God. We're going to preach the gospel. And we're going to make application of that word to the people that are in front of us. We don't have another. We don't have another plan. And so this is what God has done. This is what God has done. So we have that ministry. The other ministries that we have, I don't know why, it seems to me to be completely backwards in terms of what the Lord has done, but I don't get to tell him what to do. He does what he wants to do. This little pocket of people, God has used you in the lives of You can't count the amount of people. And you say, well, that doesn't look like it. Where are they all? Well, I get that if you look at it that way. But here's how it works. People come, and they become a part of us. And we do life together for a while. And we get to know each other. And we deal with the hard stuff. And we're just small enough that if everybody's going to have to be a member and a part The hard stuff, we're all going to have to do it together, right? So that it doesn't work in this place to be a part, to just show up on Sunday mornings and throw a 10 in the offering plate and go do what you want to the rest of the week. That doesn't work here. Again, that wasn't necessarily our plan. That's the plan of scripture. But because God has given us the ability to live like that, what has happened is There have been people, many of them, who have come through here, who have been a part of what God has done here, and they have been blessed. And then they have gone away, which is hard on us, but it happens. And when they go away, they take a part of that with them to wherever it is that they go. And it amazes me, I don't have time to go through it all now, but I was trying to think through it all and I'm sure I missed some of it, but it amazes me the amount of contacts that we have all throughout this country and all throughout the world. It should be impossible. There is not any possibility that we should have been able to do that. Well, you know what? It would be impossible if we were the ones doing it. But we didn't do it. We didn't plan it. We didn't try. So people come, they live life with us, and we live life with them, and we, many of you, and I praise God for it, are open enough that with your struggles and your difficulties, you show that, and those things then get worked out in front of them. And they see that. And sometimes hard things, where we have to do some disciplinary things that are not things that we enjoy. And they're hard, and they're difficult. But all of us have to do it. If we were anything else at this point right now, and you had a lot of folks around, not everybody would get to participate in that, perhaps. Not everybody would feel that. Because you wouldn't be able to know each other as well as you know each other. Another thing that we didn't plan, in terms of leadership here, and I can't take any credit for it, and this is not a boast, because we didn't do it. The Lord did it, but we know you. Sometimes that's a good thing, some days, well, but you could say the same thing, right? But the deal is this, nobody told us we were supposed to do that, necessarily, we just thought that's how it ought to work. And so if you're going to be a part here, you're not going to be anonymous. You're going to be known. And we're going to know what makes you tick. And in return, you're going to know something about what makes us tick. And some of that, we're going to rub each other a little bit the wrong way. But we're going to figure out how to live together and to continue to be a church. What I'm saying to you is, I could go on and on about that. But what I'm saying to you is that dynamic that is here, I'm not saying that it is a unique thing because of us. But I've heard many of the people that have come through here say that it is a unique thing, that it is different. And they carry that thing to the places that they go. If I could bottle it and sell it, I'd be rich. But I can't bottle it and settle it. It's the spirit of the living God doing what he wants to in his church. And that's just it. So sometimes when we think maybe we're not where we need to be and things aren't going the way that we think they need to go, we don't have the numbers. And we've got to get help to do Bible school. And on and on it goes. Just remember this thing. The sovereign ruler of the universe has set it up this way. And who are you to question him? And I'm talking to me. Because I struggle with it sometimes. I need to be honest. I do. I struggle with it sometimes. I told you I was going to boast on you. I've done that part. But here's the other part. I never could have imagined that such a small group of people would have so many problems. And that's exactly what it is, right? You want to know how that works out, that's how that works out. If you're outside and you start coming around, by the time you're there, three or four weeks, we know something about you. And if you stay much longer than that, a lot don't, but those that do, it's because we know something about you and we want to draw you into that, right? It's that thing. And again, I don't know that we ever taught anybody to do that. It just seems to be who the Lord has made us to be at this time. So glory in that stuff and get better at it. Get better at it. We need to have open arms to people that come here and we need to share our lives with them. We need to deal with the joys and the praises and the hard stuff together because it has made an impact. It has made an impact and it's not us, look at us, we couldn't make an impact on anybody. But the Lord has chosen to do that. Don't get boastful or proud about it. You know we didn't do it. I already told you we didn't plan it. But it is what it is right now. And so, as the Lord continues to do that, since it seems to be that this is what He has given us to do, then let's be faithful in doing it. I want to encourage you in that. To push on in that. Another area. It's related that the Lord has used this small group of people in. And this one, there are some of you that are aware of some things and not other things. But we have found ourselves in the position of needing to stand up for people who are being oppressed. People who are being mistreated many times in the name of Christ. And you would think looking at us that we could stand up for anybody I mean besides we don't have We don't have a lot of great high theological knowledge at least in one sense and we don't have a lot of Oration ability sometimes you know there there are a lot of things but but somehow The Lord has chosen to put those folks in our path, but then it goes right back to the other thing I said It's not just one person that's dealing with that it starts there then we bring those people in and the church wraps their arms around them and We move on and sometimes that works out well and And sometimes that doesn't work out as well as we would like for it to work out. But God has chosen to do this. And so rather than kick against what he has chosen to do and wish that he might do something else, we need to be thankful for what he's doing and we need to do what he seems to have shown us that we're supposed to do. So be encouraged in that. We're not We're not shooting for this thing over here that we would be able to grab hold of. We just want to be faithful. That's the bottom line. We just want to be faithful in what the Lord has given us to do. So the end of this little family talk has got to be this. Remember the basis upon which we do what we do. Remember the basis. What is that basis? It's the ends of the earth, right? It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what is the gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, we should never get tired of hearing that and thinking about that. Because as that gospel, this is what's happened to us, I think, though I can't deal with all of it in my head altogether, I think what's happened to us is that the Lord has been gracious to us, that that gospel has worked itself down so much into our lives, and that we won't leave it. Not from our own strength, but we just don't, we've figured out we've got no other place to go, so that's what we continue to come back to. And that then works itself out in our individual lives, and it works itself out in the body life. So here it is again, and I'll be brief. God, who is the creator of everything, who is holy and pure beyond all imagination, that is who he is. And we as humanity are not. Both by birth and by practice, we have said to him that he's got no right over us, that we do what we want when we want. And in fact, we've gone so far in a somewhat Christianized culture that we even think that we can use him to accomplish our own ends. rather than He being the one who would use us to accomplish His. And so you know, based on that, if God is that holy, set-apart, pure, omnipotent, righteous God that He is, you know then what we would deserve. to be utterly separated from Him forever, to be eternal recipients of His wrath. But that God who is holy and is pure and is awesome is also merciful and loving. And in that mercy and love, He sent his son, Jesus Christ, truly God, truly man, who came to this earth and lived the kind of life, the life, that I could never live and that no one else could live. He lived that life. But in the end of that life, as he died upon a Roman cross, he was treated as though he lived the life that all of us really lived. He was treated as though by God, God treated him as though he had done the things that we have done, that he rebelled, that he spit in the face of his creator, that he said I'm going to do these things my way and I don't care what you say about it. The Lord Jesus Christ every way that you have done that he was treated as though he was the one who did it and That holy righteous wrath of God was poured out on him Was poured out on The perfect Sinless son of God who Always had had perfect fellowship with his father who always did the will of His Father. He bore that wrath. Well, what happens? Well, there's a trade. There's an exchange. And this is the exchange. If my sin and my punishment is put on Christ, then His righteousness And His perfection is placed on me. And when God looks at me, He sees the righteousness of His Son. So how then do we get that? Is it just automatic? Does it just happen? Do we just learn those facts, that story? and then go on our way? Is that the exchange? No, it's back to our passage in Acts. God opens people's hearts. And our response to this truth of the gospel is repentance and faith. repentance and faith. It's not raising your hand in a meeting. It's not praying a prayer. It's not becoming more religious. It's not giving more money. It's not trying to kick your dog as much. It's not any of those things. It is God comes in and changes my motivation so that I begin to love the things that God loves and to hate the things that God hates. And that book that you're holding in most of your hand becomes vital to your existence because it contains those things that God loves and that He hates. It contains more than that. It contains who He is, what His person is like, and you can't get enough of it. Where before you wanted nothing to do with it. You wanted to live your own life. The Spirit comes into a life and changes it. And it brings repentance. Repentance. That idea of a changed mind and a changed life. The idea that I recognize that I am not a good person, I've never been a good person, and all I deserve from God is His anger and to be put away. But yet what happens instead is that I come to Him in repentance and I admit that. And it goes on and on, even through the Christian life. And I say, Lord, forgive me. And that righteousness that is imputed to me comes in and the Spirit of God comes in and it sanctifies my life over and over through a period of time. And we have faith. Faith to believe what if we truly understood it and we really don't even Even the most godly among us still don't understand it the way that we should. But the idea that God himself would do this for people like us, that Jesus really was here, that he died on the cross, that he rose again the third day, and he did that to make a people for himself, and we get to be part of that people. to repent and believe, to believe that. You know how hard that is to believe? We're not just saying that this is a good little life, that you could just gain a little bit of morality, a little bit of respectability, and you'll be in good shape. Maybe at the end of your life, God will compare your good deeds against your bad deeds, and maybe he'll let you in by the skin of your teeth. If you don't come to God with the righteousness of Christ, You don't come at all. You don't come at all. And so we've got some folks here today who maybe haven't thought about it in that way. Maybe some of our younger people. How do you get there? Where do you go? Can I flip a switch? Can I pray a prayer? And this is where it gets difficult, because there's the sense in which you can't do much of anything, except this, this one thing. If anybody here, regardless of what your profession has been up until now, if anybody here senses something that is not right within your heart, that maybe you thought about this the way that things were and you figured out that maybe you thought about it wrong and that you might need to get some things straight. Seek Him. Go after Him. Talk to some of these people around here who will talk with you and pray with you and encourage you and give you things to read. Pray. Ask Him to work. Because when you come to Him and you ask Him to work, He will, because He's already done that work in you to give you the desire to start with. He will. Don't turn that off. Don't push that away. Approach it. Keep seeking it. It's the only thing that matters. Why do I say it's the only thing that matters? Because it's going to make your life so great? No, it's not that. The reason it matters is because you could take everything, as beautiful as these mountains are, they're created. As great as the things that we all love and admire, our family relationships, all of those things, anything that you value, if you had that scale up there again, and you could put everything that we consider to be good in life on one side of that scale, and on the other side of that scale, you put the Lord Jesus Christ on the other side of that scale, There is no comparison. There is no comparison. Being in Christ gives us Christ. And you say, well, that doesn't matter to me. What is that? Seek that. Figure out what that is. We're going to close this way. If you would, please turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 7. Revelation chapter 7 in verse 9. This is the promise. So all of the things that we talked about before, Paul worked toward this as he was preaching in Corinth, dealing with all the difficulties. We are working toward this as we do those things that God has called us to do that we spoke of earlier. Verse 9. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude That no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. Standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders. and the four living creatures and they all fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever, amen. You wanna know what this is about? It's about that. You pray with me? Lord, I don't know for sure, but it seems as though perhaps you've done something here tonight. So I don't know what to ask exactly, but I would ask that you would encourage your people, those that don't know you, that you would bring conviction. those that have lived a life playing games with these serious things that you would show them Christ that your spirit would move as we've seen you do many times maybe in one individual maybe in many Lord that not that we could see something Not that we would have anything to boast about or brag about, but Lord, I pray that you would do this thing for your glory. That your name would receive the honor that it deserves. That the lamb would receive the reward for his suffering. And that as we read in the revelation, that we would glory to be amongst those people who are crying out before you, your praise is for eternity. That that would be the thing that just captivates us. Lord, I know that we can't do that, but we know that you can. So I'll walk away from this microphone and I'll leave it in your hands and ask you God to do work in your people. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.