So we're going to be reading from Psalm 80, from Psalm 80. So Psalm 80. Says this to the chief musician, upon Shoshanim, a psalm of Asif. Givir, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadeth Joseph like a flock, thou that dwelleth between the cherubims, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stare up thy strength and come and save us. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. O Lord God of hosts, how long will thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Thou feedest them with the bread of tears, and givest them tears to drink in great measure. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours, and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and did cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof like were the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea and her branches unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which passed by the way to pluck her The boar out of the wood doth waste thee, and the wild beast of the field doth devour thee. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down, they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee, quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts. Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Amen. Amen. Amen. So have you noticed, I'll imagine that you will have noticed, that the nation, our nation, seems to be in a right mess. I don't know if you spotted that, you only have to look at the news, I don't know if you look at the news these days, but you only have to look and you see that the country, that the communities that we live in, that the churches, that we see all around about us and even individual Christian lives seem to be in a mess. You're looking at average Christian these days, you can't really tell the difference between them and the world. I don't know if that's talking about you, I don't know if that's just talking about some Christians that I meet in Liverpool, but it seems to be a right mess. The communities that we are in, we just had riots in Liverpool, not so long ago, the bottom of our street, the street that me and Liz live in, at the bottom of the street, there was a riot at the bottom of the street and the library was set on fire. It was all over the news. They set a fire to the library into the foyer part that burnt in and burnt some of the books and destroyed most of the library. So there is a mess within the communities in which we live and certainly within the nation and the country that we are living in. This nation was once known as the nation of the Buch or the Buch, I don't know which way you pronounce it, but the nation of The book, and that book is scripture, the words of God. We were the nation of this book. We were the nation that sent missionaries out all over the world to preach the gospel to the lost. Now we're a nation of bookkeepers, Paddy Power and all the rest of it. You can download the apps on your phone, William Hill and Ladbrokes and all of that type of thing. And more people are interested in gambling and covetousness than they are in Christ. You'll have seen that in the nation, you'll have seen that in your own family and all around about us we see this. It appears that the glory of God has departed. It appears that the glory of God has departed from our nation, from our lands. We see it in a right mess all of the time. We see it in the churches, you only have to look at the denominations around about us, the churches that you may have heard about, you only have to look at the royal family, you only have to look at the people of the nation, and it appears that the judgment of God is upon us. as a land. What can we do when it comes to the judgments of God? Will God ever bless our land? Will God bless our nation? We need to wake up, don't we? We need to wake up as a country. We need to wake up as churches. We need to wake up as individual Christians, especially, I say especially, as the church judgment begins at the house of God. It starts with us as Christians. If anyone's to wake up, we're not to look out first and foremost at the nation. We must look at the church and we must look at the real and true church of the living God, not all the compromised churches out there that are all sorts of worldly. Those people may not even be saved. They may not even be Christians. There may be just full, absolutely full of tares, not even amongst the wheat, but just tares and just worldly over the generations, over the centuries. They have introduced worldliness. It has attracted more and more of the world. And now a lot of those churches are just the world we need to look at ourselves. In verses 1 to 3, of Psalm 80 here, we see that the people are starting to wake up, aren't they? The people are waking up to the realization that God wasn't with them. God appeared to have left them. O give ear, shepherds of Israel, thou that leadeth Joseph like the flock, thou that dwellest between the Cherubim, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength and come and save us, turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. They're realising that the shepherd has left the flock. The shepherd doesn't appear to be with them. Come, O Lord, come and turn us again, shine thy face upon us, cause thy face to shine upon us. God doesn't appear. to be with them, and they're recognizing this, and they're starting to realize, wait there a minute, God appears to have vacated His mercy seat when it comes to His people. So until as churches and as Christians, as individual Christians, we see what's actually happening with our relationship with God, then we'll never say this, will we? We'll never ask God to shine his face upon us, that we might be saved, that we might be a people who are saved from destruction, even in this land, even in this nation, you know. I know that there's been great revival in Wales, you know, and I know that there's been great revivals in Scotland, in Northern Ireland, and in England. God has raised up great preachers of the word. But now, now we seem to be living in a day of small things. We seem to be living in a day when the Bible is treated with contempt, when open air preachers are being arrested, when people who are praying outside abortion clinics are getting arrested. We live in a day and age when the Word of God is contemptuous to most people. We're living in a day and age when we're literally being invaded by false religions and we don't even see it. We don't even look at it. We don't even consider it. That the Lord is sometimes, maybe, putting us under judgment and giving us over to the enemies of the faith. We have squandered. our heritage, we've squandered our heritage as a people. We go through the motions, it's just same old, same old, week in, week out. So we're really seeking the Lord. What do we see here? What do we see? When it comes to the children of Israel wanting to be blessed, waking up and realizing the condition and the situation that they were in, what do we see? When we see that they want to be blessed by God, they want their relationship with God to be renewed. Well, the first thing we see is the people's great despair. The people are greatly despairing. Do you despair? I despair when I look at the state of the country, when I look at the state of the gospel. I wasn't saved till I was 27 years of age. I come from a non-Christian background, pretty much, just a loyalist background, going through the motions as a sort of political Protestant, but I wasn't a Christian, I wasn't a spiritual Protestant, I didn't know nothing about the Bible. When I become a Christian, I was shocked. I was shocked when I went into churches and saw the state of the churches. Most of it was just apathy. Most of it was indifferent. Nobody really cared much about the gospel. Nobody was going out witnessing. Nobody was speaking to their family and their friends. It was shocking. And I felt even at the beginning of my Christian life, even though I was excited, even though I was full of the joy of the Lord, I felt this sort of despair a little bit, like the children of Israel were starting to feel Why were they feeling despair? Why were they despondent? Well, firstly, because of a spiritual unfruitfulness. Does it make you despair? When we see that there is a unfruitfulness in the churches these days, it has always made me despair. Even when our own church went down to just three members, when we had about between nine and 12 people attending the church, it always made me Think, surely the Lord will bless us? Surely the Lord will bless his people? Because there was a spiritual unfruitfulness in verse 4. O Lord God of hosts, how long will thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Well, the people were praying, but the prayers appeared to be unanswered. Do you ever get that? Do you ever feel like that? That you're praying and praying and praying, asking for the Lord to revive His work, asking Him to bring people in and save souls, but it appears to be unfruitful. Well, you know, God won't listen if we regard sin in our heart. If we're unrepentant, if we're not turning to the Lord, it tells us in Psalm 66, verse 18, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. As a country, as a nation, We have all sorts of armistice days, parades, and you have all of these fellows getting up there in their long robes and dresses, and they say their prayers. Is the Lord listening? Is the Lord listening to the prayers of the national church? Well, I often wonder about that. Probably not. As individuals, we need to have a relationship with God on the grounds of repentance, on the grounds of hating sin within our heart, not regarding iniquity, but actually rejecting iniquity, hating iniquity. We were once the slaves of sin, but as Christians, we should be the servants of righteousness, we should love righteousness, we should love God's law, we should love the righteousness, of God. So there was this spiritual unfruitfulness. There was also a personal unhappiness, a personal unhappiness amongst the people. Verse 5, Thou feedest them with the bread of tears and gives them tears to drink in great multitude. Have you ever been like that? Have you ever been so full of sorrow? Not necessarily for sin, but full of sorrow for whatever reason it is that you can't eat. You lose your appetite. There's tears pouring down your face into your food. The tears may be dripping into the water that you'd have to drink. This is the situation that the children of Israel were in. They were starting to be convicted of their sin. and they're starting to get upset. There's a godly sorrow. It's a great thing when there is godly sorrow. Conviction of sin doesn't feel good, but it is good. So there is this personal unhappiness because of their spiritual unfruitfulness, because they do not show forth any fruit. There is a fullness of joy in the presence of the Lord. But there is no joy outside of the presence of the Lord. It's only in the presence of God where we feel this real joy. We see the people crying, as we say, into their food and losing their appetite. We should be like that. We should be like that when we see the state of our nation. We should be like that when we see the state of the schools, when we see what they're teaching the children in the schools. Immorality being taught in the schools to children as young as four years of age, teaching that they can transition to another sex, that they can say that I don't feel like a boy or I don't feel like a girl. In fact, I just feel like I'm a toaster now. I just feel like I should be a bunny rabbit. Do you know? that there's actual a classification now of people called fairies. And I don't mean fairies at the bottom of the garden. I mean people covered in fur, cats and dogs, children going into schools, identifying as a cat. Or a dog. What sort of pronoun is that? Meow? Or woof? I don't know what they like themselves called. But they're going in and they've got whiskers. They're putting whiskers on themselves, covering themselves in fear, wanting to go over and roll up in the corner like a cat and a dog. What has happened to our nation? What's happened to this country when this is the way that they're allowing the children To behave, when I was young, if I'd have identified as anything, if I'd have said, Dad, I think that I'm a girl, he'd have just given me his backhand and said, behave yourself. Go on, get a life, son. And maybe he'd have thrown me in the army when I got to a certain age. But now, you cannot impose yourself upon somebody's identification. They can identify as whatever they want. Does it make you full of sorrow and sadness? Does it make you weak before God in prayer when we see the state of the nation and what they are doing to our children? It should. This should be us. We should be those that are full of godly sorrow when we see the state of the nation, when we see the state of the churches, when we see the state of the churches, when we look round and see denominations that were once sound, that were once great, They were once blessed by God and took a stand for the gospel, and now, because they have not stood for the gospel, they have fallen for anything. In fact, they've just fallen full stop. And that's the state of the nation that we are living in. As I say, it shocked me when it came into the church, and ever since, As a Christian, 30 years as a Christian, it shocked me more and more and more, year by year by year, as we see the state of the nation, when we look at the state of ourselves as Christians, when we look at ourselves, when we examine our own lives and hearts in the light of the Scriptures, What do we see? What do we see? Does it make us despair sometimes for our lack of prayer, for our lack of reading scripture, for our lack of knowledge of the scriptures? Does it make us despair? Well it should. It should make us feel like this. Proverbs Chapter 29 and verse 2 says, And we see it, don't we? We see it with two-tier care, or whatever they like to call them these days. We see it in the state of the government. Is this the best that we've got? Look at America and the elections that they're having. Is that the best that they've got? We look back at the nation in the past, this nation. We look back at America. They've had great leaders, great rulers, godly men who ruled the nation in the past. Not now. Not now. We have atheists. The ruling, we have Hindus ruling, we have Muslims ruling, we have Roman Catholics ruling, all over the nation, all over the land, we are governed by those who don't love God, who don't respect God, who don't respect God's words, and are locking up preachers when they go out and preach. There was a preacher not so long ago, he was preaching outside a church of England Cathedral, a Church of England cathedral, and the dean of the cathedral phoned the police and had him arrested for preaching the gospel. What a sad state the nation is in when the bishops of the Church of England of the past were being burned at the stake for the gospel, for the defense of the gospel. Not now. They would now have gospel preachers burned if they had the opportunity. There is spiritual unfruitfulness. There is personal unhappiness. There is a lack of unity. That's what we see in the nation. That's what we see in the family. It's what we see in the churches. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours, and our enemies laugh amongst themselves." There was strife. There was strife. There are people coming into this country from all over the world who laugh at us. They see the state of this nation and they laugh. They see the immorality, they expect it to turn up in this country and see a godly Christian nation. They are shocked. They go into the churches, they see that there is just apathy, there is indifference, and they say they expect it to come to this nation and see that it is godly. We're Christians. who have come to your church because you've sent missionaries out to our country, and we've come back and we've heard all these great names of Whitefield in the past and many others, and we thought that it was going to be a great country full of godliness, all people like Spurgeon, and we see it, and there is total indifference within the churches and those who are the enemies of the gospel. Just laugh. That's all they do, is they just laugh. And you see that there was strife with their neighbors, with Israel, strife with their neighbors, with their fellow tribes around about them. All of the tribes of Israel had strife between them. They were wanting to fight each other. The Israelites had strife. And the non-Israelites, Laughed at them. Laughed at them. Oh, there was strife with the non-Israelites as well, but strife within their own ranks and disunity, real disunity amongst the people and their enemies laughed and saw them as a prey and they became a prey to their enemies. Disunity always brings dishonour, always brings dishonour. In organisations, I've been members of organisations in my life, and when there's been trouble and strife and disunity, it always brought dishonour. It always caused for people to leave and move on elsewhere. It brings disunity. In families, when you have a disunity in a family, it brings dishonour to the family. In the business place, when all the staff are fighting each other, you lose your Productivity in a nation, in a marriage, when there's strife in a marriage, it always ends up in divorce, doesn't it, and division amongst couples. And in church, in church when there is disunity and division, within the churches rather than Christians loving each other by this they will know that you are mine that you love one another that you love the brethren when we see that there is disunity it brings dishonor because of discord so we have to be very very careful we must bear with those who are weaker and we must always esteem others better Then ourselves, it is when pride creeps in and we consider people to be beneath us, then that is when disunity creeps in. We should always be the ones who are most spiritual, those who are the fastest to forgive, the fastest who are to reconcile any difficulty and situation, even when we're in the wrong. We should still step forth for the sake of unity because our enemies laugh at us and God is present, there is unity because we are united in Christ. We are united around God. There is one God. There is one faith. There is one birth. There is one mediator between God and man. There is one faith and one Lord Jesus Christ. So there's no strife and there's no division in Christ. Not at all. We are one in Christ. Jesus, or we should be, because love unifies and it is the evidence of life. It's the evidence that there is genuine life within us when we are prepared to be those who are humble and those who are meek. So how about you? Firstly, how's your prayer life? How is your prayer life? Getting on is god listening to you in prayer. Is he answering your prayers? Well, he wants if you regard iniquity in your heart There must be genuine repentance a genuine hatred of sin in your own life Does the state of the nation and the state of the church and the state of our children in this society? Does it make you? Despair, does it make you despair? Does it sadden you? Well, it should it should it certainly saddens me in psalm 51 verse 17 It says a broken and contrite heart. God will not despise So we see firstly there that there is great Despair, there is a great despair amongst the people secondly. We see god's dealing god's dealing with his people. We see that in verses 8 to 12. How does God deal with his people? Well, God has chosen the people for himself. We see that clearly in the Old Testament when he chooses the nation of Israel from amongst all other nations. He's saying, I'm not choosing you because you're greater than other nations, because there's more of you, because you're stronger, because you're better. None of this. God is not choosing them. He said, I don't love you because of any of these reasons. I love you because I have loved you. God has chosen a people for himself and not for anything in them. That's what he's saying. Not because of anything in them, but because of something in him. He has chosen a people for himself to show his glory through. Them he's not showing his glory through the world the world hates God and jesus said they hate me and they will hate you Because they hate me don't take it personally. Uh, they hate us because they hate christ and the world will always hate christ So he doesn't show his glory through the world, he shows his glory through the church. God gets his glory in the church. The scripture tells us he has a people for himself. He always has done. They were clearly defined in the Old Testament as the Israelites. We're not so clearly defined today because we are of every nation, of every tribe, of every tongue. We are from all over the place, all over the world, even scousers. Can you believe it? God shows his glory in different types of people. So what does he do? Well, firstly, God has planted them. He plants them in verse 8, tells us this. that was brought a vine out of Egypt, that was cast out the heathen and planted it. God has planted a people, brought them out of Egypt, placed them in Canaan in a very fruitful land. He had removed the heathen from out of them and planted them. That is where he had placed his people. Now, we are, I was going to say, in a Protestant country. We were, once a time, in a Protestant country. God had planted us and made us a great nation amongst the people. We were the nation of the book. We were the nation that took the Bible out to others, and God had placed us exactly where we are. And the gospel was preached freely. The gospel is still preached. Freely, the gospel is still preached freely in the streets of our nation. Yes, some preachers are being arrested, but we can still go out and freely preach the gospel. We can still preach the gospel, the word of God within churches. It's not made illegal. We're not being told that we can't preach the Bible. We can still preach the word of God. So God has given us the gospel. He's given us a national church that was once Protestants that was once faithful to the bible he has given us great privileges great Privilege we have had the best beginning and we're living on the heritage Of our forefathers that they have handed down to us. The nation is living on the heritage of the gospel We're squandering it, but we're living on that heritage. So god had planted them He had planted the israelites not just that he had prospered them tells us then to verse 11 from verse 9, Thou prepared this room before it, and did cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the godly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the rivers. He had planted the nation Israel. He had prospered the nation Israel with fruitfulness, with fruitfulness. They went out. They weren't the average nation. They were a prosperous nation. They were a strong nation. They were a great nation amongst the people. They were in the land of milk. and honey the lands of milk and honey and people envied them they defeated their enemies their reputation went out before them they knew all about the israelites were coming and they were petrified and scared of them they were like a great Cedar, a great cedar. It tells us verse 8 that they were like a vine. The Lord Jesus Christ is the vine. He is divine and he is the vine. Christ is the vine. The branches are The church, the church, we are the ones as Christians who are grafted in individual Christians are like the leaves on the branches on the vine. That is what we are like. This land, as I say, was once blessed with the gospel, once had great churches and great Christians. God has prospered us greatly. as a nation, cast out the heathen from amongst us, not been invaded since 1066. God has blessed us, we've been the envy of the world, as a people the envy of the world, and still are in certain parts of the world, but now People are sending missionaries to us. People are coming to us to be missionaries. People are having a great mission call. Where are you being called to? They'll say we're being called to England, we're being called to Wales, we're being called to Scotland and Northern Ireland. People, missionaries all over the world are being called. here to bring the gospel to this nation that once took the gospel out to others. God planted the Israelites. God prospered the Israelites just like he has done with us. He also protected them. He protected them. Verse 12. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? He protected her with hedges. God had protected them from their enemy. He had fenced them in with great and godly laws. He had boxed them in so they were not the same as the nations around about them. He had fenced them round with his law. He had given them the victory over their enemies and he fought for them. He fought with them and he even went out before them. He had greatly protected them. We have the same sort of situation in this land. The Spanish Armada, any of you know anything about history? The Spanish Armada came against this nation. There was nothing down for us. We didn't have a chance. God blew a mighty wind and they were dispersed and they were destroyed. The gunpowder plot. If it had been the Gunpowder Plot that had succeeded, we wouldn't have had the King James Bible. That is who it was against, King James. Make no mistake, the King James Bible wouldn't be here today. If they'd have killed King James and we'd have gone back to Popery, we wouldn't have had our Bible. But God protected us. God thwarted the plans of the Jesuits in the Gunpowder Plot. William and Mary came to England to fight against King James. God has protected us as a nation, as a nation. God has protected us. God has planted us. God has prospered us. God has protected us. He has prospered us with and protected us with in the land and us in the land. What more Could God have done for us as a nation to prosper us? What more could God have done for us? And we have just rejected our heritage as a people. By and large, God has been gracious with us and dealt graciously with us. And the gospel of faith alone in Christ alone by the grace of God alone to the glory of God alone preached through scripture alone has been preached in this nation for over 500 years God has greatly blessed us So how about you? How about you? Do you appreciate the great heritage, the great privilege, and the great honour that it is to be a Christian even in this day and age? Even in this day and age, we're still free to preach the gospel. We have the God's Word. God's Word in English. God's Word has been in English for many, many, many, many, centuries now, William Tyndale, Wycliffe, many of the martyrs have defended the words of God with their own blood, have shed their blood and given their lives for the gospel. We have had great gospel preachers over the years, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper, Rogers, who've become martyrs. We've had J.C. Ryle, we've had Wycliffe, we've had great preachers, Spurgeon and many others in this nation over the years. We should despair, shouldn't we, in so many ways because of the privileges that we have squandered as a nation. So we've seen the people despair because they are unfruitful, They are unhappy and they are not united. They are not united. We've seen God's gracious dealing with that nation, planted them, prospered them, protected them, just like he has done with us. Then we see the people's grave danger. What dangers were the people in? Well, firstly, there was external dangers, dangers from the outside that weren't coming from internally. They were external dangers. Verse 12. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way to pluck her? So there is these external dangers. All those that pass by, all those that are going past, pluck her. The nations around about them start oppressing them. They start invading them, because the protection has been removed. And all of a sudden, invaders come in from the outside. That's what's happened in the church, isn't it? Invaders have come in from the outside. Humanism, secularism, wokeism, Marxism, all of these things have come into the modern church. From the outside, they're not in scripture, they've not come from the inside, they've come from the outside. Atheism, evolution, there are atheists in the churches. As I've said in the past, there are actual atheists, there are practical atheists, there are people who say there is no God, most of them are not in the church, but there are also those who say that there is a God, but act like there is no God. They're just practical atheists, they're acting like They are atheist evolution creeping into the churches. People no longer believing that God created the world in literal six days and then rested on the Sabbath. Not at all, it's all completely gone now. Theistic evolution, people believing in gap theories and all sorts of different things. Materialism. Materialism, the desire for wealth, the love of those who are rich, getting the best seats in their houses, materialism. We've had religious external dangers with Islam. coming into the country, invading our nation, boat after boat after boat of young fighting age men who know the Quran, who stand on speaker's corner in London and argue with Christians, who stab people who are ex-Muslims. We've had an invasion of Islam in our nation. It's not going to get any better. It's only ever going to get worse. You see, the state of Islamic nations, they're escaping Islamic nations to come to this nation, because of the state of their nations. And they're going to come and make us the same, unless we recognize that we are in grave danger. They were in grave danger, the Israelites, and they didn't even realize it. They started intermarrying with the unbelievers and the other tribes, and the next minute they were gone. There were these external dangers. There were all sorts of external dangers over the years. We've had Romanism come in and the ecumenical movement watering down the gospel. We've had all sorts of liberalism, we've had the Jehovah's Witnesses, we've had the Mormons all shipped in from other places, the Seventh-day Adventists that have come in within the nation external. dangers, but there was also internal dangers. Verse 13. The boars out of the wood doth waste thee, and the wild beast of the field doth devour thee. The wild beasts are starting to destroy the land, the wild animals are coming out of the woods and coming and destroying the land, destroying the nation, eating the vine, making the nation weak, eating their food and weakening them. The church has internal dangers. False. Doctrine, Jesus said that there will be those who are wolves. They will come in not sparing the flock. They will want to scatter the flock. There is these internal dangers. There are wolves in amongst the flock. False doctrine, false doctrine. Teaching. Do you know your average sheriff doesn't have a clue about doctrine? If you haven't got a clue about it, they'll tell you a doctrine is divisive. Oh, don't be learning any doctrine. All he means, teaching. All he means, learning. We need to learn the scriptures. We need to be taught from the apostles and the prophets. doctrine, whole denominations liberalizing because they are scared of doctrine. The Methodists, Church of England, United Reform, Salvation Army, they have all gone the way of Cain, haven't they? They have all gone and just drifted away because of false teaching and false doctrine, destroyed by liberalism and ecumenism and Arminianism and wokeism and all the rest of it, destroyed by false doctrine, man-centered teaching, man-centered inventions, so there's external dangers, internal dangers, and eternal dangers. Eternal danger, verses 14 to 16. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven and behold and visit this vine and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire. It is cut down. They perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. There are eternal dangers, eternal dangers. People out there outside the walls of this church are perishing. They are heading to a lost eternity on a broad road that leads to destruction. They are heading to hell, there is eternal dangers if the church folds up, if the churches close, if the churches liberalize, if the churches compromise, there is eternal dangers. It says they are burned with fire, they are cut down, the nation started to be invaded and defeated and overrun. That's what happened to the Israelites with their enemies. to live and die without the gospel, to live and die without the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, to live and die outside of Christ as eternal consequences. Eternal consequences. You're not just going to die and go to the grave and fall asleep and that's it. You're not going to be resurrected to an annihilationism where you just vanish, not at all. There are eternal consequences for the rejection of the gospel. If the church is overtaken by compromise, there will be eternal consequences. There is an eternal punishment where the Lord Jesus Christ says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you, never knew you into everlasting punishment. It says they are burnt like chaff. Burnt like chaff, it tells us here. So some people here, even today, may be in grave Danger. I don't know everybody's heart. I don't know if everybody here is a Christian. Some here may be in grave danger of eternal punishment. If you are living for self, if you are living for sin, and you are not living for the Savior, If you have not presented your body, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. If you are just conformed to the world, if you have no interest in Christ and serve in Christ, you are in eternal Danger, there are eternal and external and internal issues that we have to deal with. The internal forces of the world, the flesh, the devil is all external, isn't it? The internal is the likes of the lust and greed and faithlessness, pride, all of these things may well be destroying you, internal things, external things, but before it's too late, we must realize our position. We must examine ourselves to see if we be in the faith. Let every man examine himself, we read in scripture. We must examine ourselves, realize our position, recognize our privileges, our privileged position, and then retain to God before it is too late. So how about you? How about you? Is there been a time when you have recognized your danger, when you've realized the danger that you're in, recognized that danger, and turned away, turned away from the broad road that is leading to destruction, to the narrow way that leads to life? Jesus said, I am the way. Jesus is that narrow way that leadeth unto life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by faith. Me, has there been a time in your life when you've recognized your sin, you've repented of your sin, and you've turned to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance and faith? If not, you are in eternal danger, eternal danger. As I say, there is only one way, and no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. So we've seen the great despair of the people. We've seen the gracious dealings of God with the people. We've seen the grave danger that the people are in. And then we see a gracious deliverance. So it's not all bad news. It's not all gloom and doom, although we look at our nation and we feel like it is. It's not all gloom and doom. There is a gracious deliverance of God's people. How were the people delivered? How can we be delivered? How can we be delivered like the children of Israel? Firstly, we must look up. That's what we must do. We must stop looking at ourselves introspectively all the time. We must stop looking at our nation and we must start to look up. We must start to look up to God. That's what we must do. Verse 17. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madeest strong for thyself. The Son of God is our only hope. The one who is on the right hand of God is our only deliverer. We must look up to Him. We must look to Christ, who is the author and finisher of our faith. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation's of the Lord. It is not of him that willeth. It is not of him that runneth. It is of God, the show of mercy. Salvation is of the Lord. Somebody once said that when Jonah was swallowed by the whale and he shouted out, salvation is of the Lord, the whale must have been an Arminian. It spat him up on the beach. It didn't like the idea of salvation being of the Lord and God getting all the glory. Salvation is of The Lord, so we must spend more time really looking to God than we should looking to ourselves. It is God who saves. It is not us that save. It is God who saves. So we must look up. God is our hope. The people cried out to God for help. And that's what the Bible tells us, doesn't it? In 2 Chronicles, if my people, 2 Chronicles 7, 13 and 14, if my people should humble themselves and pray, that's what God wants. He wants us to be humbled. He wants us to be humbled. He wants us to get on our knees and he wants us to look up to him he wants us to look up to the one who is on his right hand upon the man of thy right hand upon the son of man that was jesus's favorite title for himself son of man called himself son of man more than any other title who now made us strong for thyself it tells us a country A church, a Christian can only be blessed when we seek God. That's the only way that we can be blessed, when we seek God. Because God is all-powerful. God is all-knowing. And what is impossible for man, we look at this nation, we look at the churches, we say it's impossible. It's impossible we were once blessed by God. It's impossible now we have gone away from God. It is impossible. Jesus said it is impossible with man. But it's possible with God. So we have to look to God. We have to look to God to deliver us as a people and as a nation. We must look up to God. We can only be blessed when we seek the Lord with all of our heart, all of our minds, and all of our soul. When we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all these things shall be added unto us. And we can only do this when we come to the Father by the Son, through the Son, no other way than through the Lord Jesus Christ, the one whom thou madest strong for thyself. So the first thing we need to do, like the Israelites, for a gracious deliverance, is to look up. To look up to God. And then we need to wake up. We need to wake up. I remember the famous Northern Irish preacher shouting, wake up! Wake up! From the pulpit. He didn't say it with a Scouse accent. He said it with a Northern Irish accent. Wake up! It is time that we wake. Up. That's what you must do. Look up. Wake up. Verse 18. So will not we go back from thee, quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Wake up. We need God to wake us up from the dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. We read in Ephesians 2 and verse 1, dead, dead in sin and trespasses. Wake up. We need God to wake us up as a people dead in sin, but alive. in Christ, resurrected to a newness of life. This is what the church needs, it needs life. It needs a life from the dead. It's as if we are in the dead, we're asleep, we're apathetic, we're almost dead. Wake up, wake from the dead. Ephesians 5 verse 14 says, Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ will give thee light. Light brings life, doesn't it? Light brings life to a plant. Jesus is the light of the world. He's the one who gives us life. When we look up To him and then the amazing thing about jesus who is the light of the world says to believers Ye are the light of the world jews christians are the light of the world We reflect his light like the moon reflects the light of the sun We are the light of the world and we can take that light out Into darkness, but firstly we have to look up Secondly, we have to wake Up. We have to wake up to our condition. Then, speak up. Speak up. Verse 18. So well now, we go back from thee quickeners, and we will call upon thy name. We will call upon thy name. They'd been calling, but they had not been heard. Why was that? Maybe it was just vain repetition. Maybe it was just same old, same old. Everything the same as it's always been. And they just get into a vain, repetitive manner. But now all of a sudden, when they have woken up, they start to genuinely call upon God with a real passion within their heart, not vainly repeating. Now they are alive. They are quickened by the Spirit of God. And He hears them. He hears them. When we're alive. When we are born again and we have a real genuine passion for the gospel, when we have a real love for the lost, when we have a real desire for our nation and the state of the land and the state of the churches, we will wake up and we will speak up to God. We will call upon the name of the Lord continually. The Bible tells us that's how we become a Christian. Call thee upon the name of the Lord and thou shalt be saved. Ask and thou shalt Receive, we are those who must start a relationship with God in prayer. We must call out upon the name of the Lord to be saved and say, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. And he hears, he listens to us as churches, as individuals, we have to recognize the grave condition that we are in, the grave danger that we are in as a land. So how about you? Have you looked up? Have you looked up to God? Psalm 121 verses 1 and 2 says, and earth. The Lord is our help. The Lord is our refuge. The Lord is our great high tower. The Lord is our defense. Have you woke up? Have you woke up to the country's condition? Have you woken up to your own condition? Do you really desperately want a reformation and a revival of Protestantism within our nation? If so, have you spoke up? Have you spoken to God about it? First and foremost, take it to God and then speak up for God if thou should confess the Lord Jesus Christ with thy lips. We need to tell people the gospel. We need to share the gospel with those who are lost. Speak up to God first and then speak to those who are lost. Have you called on the Lord and asked for life? and asked for light, that you might take that light out into this dark world. So let me just finish and say this. Will God bless our land? Will God bless our nation? Will God bless our churches? Well, that depends, doesn't it? If we see the grave danger, if we see the grave danger that we are really in, rather than just being apathetic and just sit around and do nothing, when we start to feel a great despair like Israel felt for the nation, for the children, for the church, When we recognise the great dealings of God in the past, read a bit of church history, see what God has done with our nation in the past, and pray. Pray that God will bring about a glorious deliverance, a glorious deliverance, that God will do it. We can't do it. It's impossible. Pray that God will bring about a glorious deliverance in the land, in the church, in our lives as individuals. The psalmist finishes with these true and very timely words, may they be our words for our country and for ourselves, because judgment begins at the house of God. It says this, verse 19, turn us again O Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Amen. Amen. Amen.