84. Hear the word of the Lord. To the choir master, according to the Gideth, a psalm of the sons of Korah, How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts. My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home in the swallowing nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, and whose heart are the highways of Zion. As they go through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength. Each one appears before God in Zion. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give ear, O God of Jacob. Behold our shield, O God. Look on the face of your anointed. For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated and let's pray. Father, we thank you again for this means of grace, the reading and the hearing of your word, which is a blessing in itself. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you would illumine the word that we have heard read to our hearts and minds in order that it would take root and bear fruit in our living. But now, Lord, we come to the preaching of your Word. You've ordained that in the public assembly, in the worship, your Word would be proclaimed. You call men, you gift men, you set them apart through the laying on of hands for this ministry, this task of the proclamation of the exposition of the Word of God. And yet the men that you've set apart have feet of clay. We are earthen vessels. You delight to hide treasure in earthen vessels, especially in the preaching of the word that you may be glorified. So Lord, to your servant who stands before the congregation in his own weakness, a sinner in need of grace, just as those are to whom he preaches the gospel. that you would provide the unction and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that your gospel would be preached with both clarity and power, to glorify your name and to edify your people here gathered. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. When I was asked to come and do this conference, I really wanted to do it. We had tried, as I said, earlier two years before and through miscommunication weren't able to do it. But I've been delighted, it's been a joy to me to be with you here Friday night and yesterday as well and I'm looking forward to the rest of this day. But as I said before the first lecture that I actually suggested two topics. for the session to consider. And I would do one or the other, and maybe something else. If they said, no, we don't want you to do either of those two, we want you to do this, I might would even have tried that. But they graciously chose between the two. And of course, the one that we've done is a historical study of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, its history, the ethos of the OPCH, because of that history, And then we've focused our attention upon our own regional church, the Presbytery of the Southeast, and then to particular works within the Presbytery of the Southeast. But the other topic, I really am itching to do a conference on the other topic. And it's a deep dive into the flow and the arrangement of the Psalms in the Psalter and the redemptive history that underlies that flow and that arrangement. And I've been doing the deep dive for nearly 10 years now in this subject. I've actually designed and have taught on at least three occasions already a course in that at Grand Bible College. And I think there's something here. It really began by my discovering a book that I didn't know had been written until shortly, until the time it was actually published, by Dr. O. Palmer Robertson called The Flow and the Arrangement of the Psalms, where he suggested the Holy Spirit had something to do with how the Psalms were organized. And I was intrigued because I had been preaching Psalms and even series in the Psalms, like the Songs of the Saints, like the Hillel of Egypt and our mission works before then. So I was primed and ready to hear what Dr. Robertson had to say. and it impacted me greatly and I've been giving a good deal of study to it ever since. And one of the things that I have done in a number of our mission works in recent years is actually to preach selectively through this altar. Not every psalm. Last time I preached every psalm was at Providence Christian Church when I was pastor there on Sunday evenings. It took me five years to work through the entirety of the Psalter. But selected psalms to show the progression and the flow. And I've done that recently in a number of our mission works. And what I tell them when I do that up front It's depending on whether you're being charitable or critical. These will be meaty sermons if you're charitable. They may be a little longer sermons if you're uncharitable. Because what I try to do is to place each psalm that's selected where it is in the Psalter and show how it contributes to that flow. Give the redemptive historic underpinnings of that psalm and where it is in the Psalter. You see, there's two sermons already in one. And then come to the text of the psalm itself and to expound the psalm. And I'm going to do that again here this morning and this evening. But we're still in the same theme of ecclesiology. We've been doing a conference on the history of the church, in particular, the history of our portion of the church, a church that I love dearly, and I hope and trust that you love our church too dearly. Warts and all, we are a very imperfect church, but by God's grace, God has kept the Orthodox Presbyterian Church a faithful church. I can say that with great confidence by his grace. But to look now more at what the Bible has to say about the church this morning in terms of her worship, and this evening in terms of her existence, what the church is, the glory of the assembly and worship, and then the glory of the church with Psalm 87 this evening. But in order to do the first part of this three-part sermon, because there's going to be five points in the sermon when we get to the text itself, I need to step back just a little bit and say this. As helpful as Dr. Robertson's book was for me, and tremendously helpful, The key to really unlock this progression that we find in the Psalter didn't come from Dr. Robertson. It came from Dr. Michael Morales. When Dr. Robertson published his book, shortly after that at Greenville Seminary at the Summer Institute, he was the keynote speaker, and he took the people that gathered. I wasn't able to be there. He took them through the material that's in his book. And I wanted to go so bad because I'd read his book at least twice by then over the past couple of months. I was so intrigued. But I was unable to go. And so I kept waiting for them to post these lectures on Sermon Audio, and they never did. And I was not happy. I was not happy with Dr. P, I'll tell you. I was not happy with that. I kept looking and kept looking and kept looking, and they weren't posted. But I got to talk to some of my brothers that attended. I don't know whether Dan was one of them or not. He probably was at the time. And I would say, what is it like sitting under Dr. Robertson and the Psalms? And they would say, oh, it was great, but why do you hear Morales? Everyone, why do you hear Morales? I said, well, what is this? Why do you hear Morales? And I went to the presbytery meeting and there was a seminary student there in his last year by the name of Lowell Ivey. His name's come up already in this conference. And I went up to Lowell and I says, when are you guys gonna put the lectures from the Summer Institute on sermon audio? I need to hear them. And he says, they're not gonna put them on sermon audio. This is a classroom setting, they typically don't put them. I said, I need those lectures. He said, I think I can get them. I need to talk to Dr. P to make sure, but I think I can get it. I said, you tell Joey, I want those lectures. And three or four days later, I get a zip drive with all the lectures in it. And I start listening to Dr. Robertson's, and this is great, but it's what he said in his book, and I've already read the book. What is this these friends of mine are saying about Dr. Morales? And so I start listening to his lectures. And one other thing, you guys are gonna appreciate this, because you love Dr. P. This was one time when it was good that in God's providence, Dr. P. didn't get to preach. You see, he and Michael were scheduled to do the supplemental lectures to split them between them. on Christ and the Psalms. But what happened was, he was going out of the country, Dr. P was going out of the country, and plans got changed. His date for departure was moved up. All he was able to do was introduce Dr. Robertson. He had to dash out the door and get on a plane and fly away, which meant Dr. Morales got to do all of the supplemental lectures. I love Dr. P. but those were some lectures on the Psalms from Dr. Morales. And this is what Dr. Morales told me. This is the key. This is the key that really unlocked it and helped me understand what Dr. Robertson was trying to demonstrate to us. If you look at the Psalms, if you look at how it is arranged on the face of the text itself, The first arrangement is it is divided into five books. Book one, Psalms one to 41. Book two, Psalms 42 to 72. Book three, Psalms 73 to 89. Book four, Psalms 90 to 106. Book five, Psalm 107 to 150. Now I had known that for years, but I never even asked the question, why? It was Dr. Morales that helped me to see it. Now, you have to fly 36,000 feet above the psalter and look down on it in order to really see this clearly, but it can be demonstrated. Don't have time to do it. Maybe this is a taste of what you would have gotten if you'd have done the Psalm thing. It's up to the session whether it's a foretaste of what you might would sometime get. No pressure, no pressure whatsoever on the session about that. But if you're flying 36,000 feet, what you see is that the Psalter is rooted and grounded in the covenant that God made with David. and the historical unfolding of that covenant in the history of God's people under the Davidic covenant. And if you look at book one from 36,000 feet, there emerges a description or a title that you could give to book one which would be the rise of the Davidic kingdom. The history of that would be David ascending to the throne and establishing his kingdom in the midst of all kinds of duress and difficulty and hardship from without and from within. If you look at book two from 36,000 feet, it can be summarized under the heading, The Glory of the Davidic Kingdom. That is the end of David's reign through the reign of Solomon, where the Davidic kingdom came to its greatest fruition under the old covenant. That was under the reign of Solomon. And if you look at Psalm 72, the last book, the last psalm in book two, who wrote it? Solomon wrote it. It's a messianic psalm. Book three, beginning with 73, going through 89. And if you're paying attention, you realize these two psalms that we have this morning and this evening are in book three. The collapse of the Davidic kingdom. 17 Psalms in Book 3. Seven of those Psalms together are devoted to describing for us the collapse of the Davidic Kingdom. First, the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC because she broke covenant with God. That's Psalm 80. And then ultimately the collapse of the Southern Kingdom, 587, 586 BC to the Babylonians, Psalm 79 describes that destruction specifically and carefully. Psalm 80 is the aftermath of the fall of the Northern Kingdom. And all seven of these in one way or another refer to that collapse. That's seven out of 17 psalms. the collapse of the Davidic kingdom because God's judgment came, his judging hand came down upon his people because they broke covenant with God. But four, more quickly, because we're not going to get there this morning or this evening, is the absence of the Davidic kingdom. No Messianic Psalms. Yahweh is king, Psalms all over the place. It corresponds with what? With the Babylonian captivity. And then as you come into book five, the return of the king, anticipating. the return, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Beginning with when Cyrus issued the decree for the Jews to go back and rebuild the temple, to reestablish the worship of God into Jerusalem again. Then Ezra comes, brings spiritual reforms. 13 years after Ezra comes, Nehemiah comes and fortifies the city. Everything is prepared and ready. But where's the son of David to sit on the throne? And from the end of Nehemiah's second governorship, they had to wait 400 years before the son of David would come. He came into the city riding on the coat full of a donkey. Book five anticipates that. And if I had time, I could demonstrate that, I think, very clearly and decisively. But we come back to book three, the collapse of the Davidic kingdom. And the first thing that stares out at you when you consider 84 and 87, which 84 is about how steadfast, immovable, and how glorious the temple is, the house of God, the worship of God. It's here to stay. And then Psalm 87, the same of Mount Zion. where Jerusalem is built, which of course has its counterpart of the new covenant, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. But how steadfast and immovable Mount Zion is. And yet the whole book talks about the collapse of Mount Zion, the collapse of Jerusalem, its walls torn to the ground, and the destruction of Solomon's temple where it was torn to the ground and left in rubble and the people were taken away into captivity outside of the promised land. These two Psalms don't fit. In fact, I often wondered, wouldn't Psalm 84 be a wonderful psalm to be in the Songs of Ascents? The Psalms of Ascents, 120 to 134, you familiar with those particular psalms? Those are the pilgrim songs. Those were the psalms that the people of God under the second temple, Second Temple Judaism, following the Babylonian captivity, those were the Psalms they sang while ascending Mount Zion, while going up to Jerusalem to worship God. 120 to 134, wonderful study, Songs of Ascents. Psalm 84 is the Psalm of Ascent, of Psalms of Ascent. I read it in the ESV, because that's what most of our churches use. I think your elder was using what, New King James Version this morning? I actually prefer it in the New King James Version. If you look at verse 5, you see, blessed, this is the ESV, blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts, and whose heart are the highways of Zion. The New King James translates that, blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. You see that in your New King James version? That's where I got the title of my first novel, was from that verse. and the inspiration of those novels was the Songs of Ascents. This would fit perfectly there, so why is it here? Or what about how Mount Zion is immovable in a book that talks about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem? Why are they here? Well, I think the answer is quite clear why they're here. And the answer can be summarized in a word that we find, especially in book five, over and over and over again. And that word is hesed. I'm sure you've been taught the Hebrew word hesed. Translated by the King James, mercy. Translated by the ESV and others, his steadfast love. I'm actually vacillating and going back to mercy after hearing Dr. Morales on Exodus at the family camp. I don't think either of those fully encapsulates the full import of that word. God is faithful to his covenant, even though we're not. And that's the history of the Old Testament. God entered into covenant, a gracious covenant. Yes, a gracious covenant at Mount Sinai with his people where he gave him his laws so that they would be a holy people and a light, a city set on the hill to all the world, so all the nations around them. But the story is Israel failed. Israel broke covenant. And God's chastising punishment came upon them in the collapse. First, the kingdom to the north in Israel, 722 BC. Second, culminating in 587 and 586 with the destruction of the city walls and the temple and the taking of the rest of them into exile. Except for the most aged and infirmed man by the name of Jeremiah was left. It actually happened in three waves. 605, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Kids, you remember Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? That was in 605 BC, when just a handful of the best and brightest were taken. About 10 years later, 587 BC, 10,000 were taken, including Ezekiel, a priest who would become a prophet in Babylon. And then ultimately 587, 586 BC, the city walls were torn to the ground and the temple was demolished to dust and the rest were taken into captivity. But Chesed, it's always there. Yes, the warning in scripture, if you do not repent and walk according to my ways, this is what I'm going to do. And that's what the prophets did. They said, repent or else, until the latter prophets finally said, just or else, or else. The time of judgment is at hand. But there was always inherent in that, the principle of hesed, God's promise, I'm gonna bring you back. I'm gonna bring you back. And why is that? Because God had made a promise all the way back in Genesis, Genesis chapter 3. In his curse upon the serpent, that I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, he, her singular seed will bruise your head, you'll bruise his heel. That history will take place. And that's our redemption, because that's the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's His cross, His barrel, and His resurrection. And so I think 84 is here, and 87 is here in this book to remind us, yes, God's judgment is coming upon His stiff-necked, covenant-breaking people, but it's a chastising judgment because God is faithful to His covenant, and He will bring them home, and He will restore them, and from them will come His Son, the Messiah, who would redeem His people through His shed blood. And it's to remind us of the steadfastness of God's covenantal faithfulness and His mercy that we find these two glorious psalms where they are. Now it makes sense, at least to me. I hope it makes sense to you. But let's look at this psalm. It's a beautiful psalm. Like I said, now we're to sermon number three. Sermon number three divides itself into five sections very easily. Verses one to two, yearning of the soul for the worship of God. Three to four, safety and serenity in God's house. Verses five to seven, the joy of pilgrimage. Verses 8 and 9, protection for the sake of Messiah. God was always protecting his people for the sake of the manifestation of his Son, the Messiah. And then verses 10 to 12, the joy of the worship of God and that God protects his own, the safety and security in the assembly with the people of God in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So those are going to be the five headings as we work our way through this psalm. First of all, the yearning of the soul for the worship of God. Just listen, listen. This is the sons of Korah, one of the sons of Korah who wrote this particular psalm. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts. My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Do you hear the yearning and the joy for the assembly? And the voice of the singer of this psalm? What was it like at your house this morning when you got up? When the alarm went off? It's Sunday, right? I can't wait to get up and wash my face and brush my teeth and take my shower and let's just eat the breakfast, kids. Let's eat breakfast and let's hurry and let's get in the car. Let's get there early so we can find a seat. Was that what it was like in your house this morning? and preparation for coming into the presence of Almighty God in His assembly. A God who in His mercy has forgiven your sins and reconciled you to Himself. It's amazing how Satan just loves to cause something to happen on Sunday morning. And if we're ill-prepared enough, it might even sometimes keep us from getting in the car and getting here. Now, I know I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the broader church here. There's never any bickering in the car on the way here, any fussing, I don't know what to wear, or I can't believe I didn't pick up my suit. That happened to me recently when both of my new suits were at the cleaners and forgot to pick them up and I had to preach on Sunday. Good thing I had another one that still fit that I could wear. Oh, Satan loves to be malicious on Sunday mornings. to get our minds off of what is going to happen shortly. Do you know what's going on right now? Let's just move the ceiling. We'll put it back. Let's just move the ceiling. Move the roof. Part the skies. I know the heavens are invisible. We can't see with these eyes. I know that. But do you know what's happening? And it's not way off as we tend to think. You have the throne room of God in the invisible heavens. You have the father upon his throne. I know he's spirit, I understand that. You have the son who is on his throne who is still the God man. You have the four living creatures. Incessantly, since the moment of their creation, they've been singing their song. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. Listen. See if you can hear them. I know you can't hear them with these ears. But by faith, they're singing their song incessantly from the moment of their creation. even at this moment and forever. And there are myriads of angels that surround the throne and the church triumphant, yes, our loved ones who are with Christ. And we are joining in as the church here on earth, the church militant. And there is more glory in this room right now than in 10,000 Passovers under the Old Covenant, which was dim by comparison in glory to what we have in the revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ and his finished redemptive work. And we are here in the assembly. There's more glory here than when there was 1.5 million Jews in Jerusalem celebrating the Passover at this glorious, glorious temple. Both the one Solomon built, the one that was built second that Jesus came to, that Herod had refurbished to be one of the great wonders of the world. The glory of that temple pales in comparison to the glory of this small assembly, as Jesus has come. I love that your session and your congregation takes the worship of God seriously. There's no frivolity. The way your elder leads you in worship in all seriousness, And your other elder and your pastor do the same thing. And your intern. Do the same thing. Because they understand what's happening. This moment should be your greatest joy. And you get to do it twice. Every Lord's Day. This is the sentiment that we see under the Old Covenant, which was dimmed by comparison in glory. How much more so is this true now in the New? The yearning of the soul for the worship of God. The safety and serenity of God's house. Look at what we read here. Even the sparrow finds a home in the swallowing nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Bless her to those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. You know, one of the things we think about when we think of the temple is we think of, because of God's holiness, There's this sense of separation. And under old covenant worship, this was a fact. Both in tabernacle and temple, there was a gradation of courts. In the temple, you had the court of the Gentiles where uncircumcised Gentiles could pray, but they could go no further. They couldn't go into the court of the women. Only Jewish women and men could go that far. And then there's another court that only the men could go into, the court of Israel. And then ultimately you have the holy place and then the veil and the holy of holies, only the high priest once a year under old covenant worship. And you get a sense here, Swallows, they better be very careful. to build their nest on the altar of the Lord? Wouldn't that desecrate it? Isn't God's wrath going to come down and destroy the nest and burn it up? No. This holy and righteous and unapproachable is the God of acid. He's the God of mercy. He is tender. He is tender. And in the new covenant, that veil in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross was torn from top to bottom. And your bid to come boldly into the very presence of the living God, because Jesus has gone before you, not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with his own shed blood. Yes, He is the Holy God and to be revered. But He is your Savior. He is your Father. And we have to recognize both of these things as we come together in the assembly. No place for frivolity. The place for reverence. but a place not to be afraid because Jesus has taken away condemnation of you as a sinner because He took it on Himself. It's like the Father says, come boldly right into my arms because of Christ. Yes, revering who he is, fearing God for who he is, but with no fear or dread because of Jesus. Even the swallows had a home under the old covenant there. Blessed are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise. What a blessing. You know, the sad thing about being a priest or a Levite is you could only serve at the temple two weeks out of the year, and then at the major feasts and festivals. There were so many of them, they had a term that they would serve and they would go and serve their time there. If you were a priest or a Levite, you should want every week to be your term. Where's a better place to be? That sentiment is repeated in this psalm. And then the joy of pilgrimage. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose heart is set, let's go to the New King James Version, on pilgrimage. That was what captured me as I was my imagination was running wild in writing the novel was just that sense of anticipation for a Jew that lives in Kadar, in God's providence, way to the east of the Holy Land, but one who loves God forbidden by God's providence in terms of his own livelihood from being able to go up three times a year for the feasts and festivals, it takes you a month to get there and a month to get home. And if you have a thousand sheep, you can't go to your neighbors and say, would you feed our pets while we go to Jerusalem for three months? Especially when your neighbors are your enemies. What would it take? I mean, you would have to liquidate everything that you've accumulated. It may be something you would do once in your life, or maybe twice. Maybe your father took you, or you were a boy or a girl. But to worship as God had prescribed, when this is God's providence in your circumstance, what would that pilgrimage be like? the anticipation of the courts of God, of seeing the temple maybe for the first time in your life. You don't have to wait until the next feast or festival for the National Assembly to take place. You get to go every Sunday. And now with motorized vehicles, I got here in five minutes from the motel. Some of you may drive 30 minutes, 45 minutes. Many of our churches, people do. Some people drive up to an hour or even longer than an hour in order to hear faithful preaching in some of our churches. We think, wow, what if it would take you a month on horseback through the desert? How precious would it be? And like I said, when you enter these doors that don't look anything like the Nicanor doors that it took how many Levites to even open them? There's more glory coming through these doors than going through those doors in the temple because Jesus has come. This is why we should do better at preparing ourselves for the Lord's worship. Not staying up late to watch that movie or that ball game. Getting plenty of rest, preparing our soul so that we're fresh and ready when we have that opportunity to come into the presence of the Lord. This should be our greatest joy. And then protection for the sake of Messiah, verses eight and nine. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayers. Give ear, O God of Jacob. You can almost hear the plaintiff cry here from the singer. Behold our shield, O God. Look on the face of your anointed. Protect the king. Protect the king. And of course, that would be David. It would also be David's sons. But ultimately, the Messiah of God, with a capital M, Messiah, would be David's greater son, as David calls him in Psalm 110. It would be the Lord Jesus Christ. But protecting the king and protecting the people is carrying that seed, the seed that would come from Judah, to ensure his birth. And the parallels between Christ and Israel are striking from a redemptive historic perspective. We're not going to touch upon that. Because that moment had to come. The incarnation of the Son. But ultimately, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, or we would be dead in our sins and forsaken and left and hopeless. But God promised all the way back in the garden what he would accomplish and what he would do through his son. And so there's an earnest zeal for protection, not just for our sakes under the old covenant, but for the protection of the seed. And Satan made attempts throughout the Old Testament to cut off that seed. to keep God from fulfilling that promise of the seed that would bruise his head. He failed every time because God's will would be accomplished. His will is accomplished in the Lord Jesus Christ and he is our redemption. And so we pray for protection for the sake of the seed under the old covenant and now for the sake of the spread of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for peace in our land, and we should. Your elder did this morning. One body for believers would be, we pray for peace in order that the gospel may go forth unhindered. And then when there's not peace, we pray for the gospel to still go forth. Sometimes it does even with greater power. We're willing to rest in that. We want the gospel to go forward. We want people to be converted and come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy what we get to enjoy in our relative freedom in our day, every Lord's day, twice. Come together in the assembly to give thanks to God for what he's done for us in Christ Jesus. And then the joy of the worship of God and how God protects his own. For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. A day at church is better than a thousand days anywhere else under the new covenant. I'd rather be a doorkeeper of the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Just let me in the door. I'll guard the door. That's enough for me, the psalmist is saying here. I just want to be with you and with your people. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. He's a sun. He's a light, a bright shining light. He is a shield. He is a protector of his people. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. And then he ends with, O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you. You realize there's safety in the worship of God. You might say, but what if what we see happen? What if the doors are stormed before we end this service? Somebody comes in with an automatic rifle and opens up on us. It's happened in churches. We live in that kind of crazy world in our day. There's still safety and security. It sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies. Isn't that what your favorite Psalm says? The world cannot understand this security. If a gunman were to come in and your pastor were to throw himself in front of him and take that bullet, God forbid, we love our pastor, it would be a horrific thing. But our pastor would be with Jesus. Understand? Even in protecting the rest of the congregation, for more time to serve him here. Oftentimes we don't think in these kinds of terms. Now, don't get me wrong, I think we need to be prudent. It wouldn't surprise me if there's not someone packing here even right now, the day in which we live, and I'm all for that. We need to be prudent in the world in which we live. You know, we obey the commandment, thou shalt not kill by protecting our lives and those of others. I'm not getting into that kind of a discussion here. I'm just talking about within, under the umbrella of God's sovereignty and his care in your security in Christ Jesus, that even if the enemies did storm these doors, we're still safe and secure because we have peace with God through Christ Jesus. And though we sometimes moan and bemoan increasing persecution in our own culture, and it is increasing, there's no question about it, at the present, it's nothing like what some of our brothers and sisters have experienced and are experiencing right now worldwide. Even brothers and sisters in Eritrea, many have been in prison for years. Zacchaeus tells a story about, y'all know Zacchaeus I'm sure, Zacchaeus, who's our dear brother and friend and member of our Presbytery. When he was imprisoned in Eritrea, been beaten, and he was in despair. Why? And I don't think this was the first time. And he began to hear his brothers and sisters in Christ and other stales begin to sing praises to God. And his heart was just lifted up. He understood the protective hand of God even in the midst of the merciless beating that he had just received because it was for the sake of Christ. and his brothers and sisters held him up. Many of the church had been arrested. We have to recognize we live here now in light of the age to come. We have no continuing city here. All of us, our days are three score and 10. Every day is a borrowed day for me from now on. Because I got the three score and 10 in June. So I'm living on borrowed time as far as how that count goes. But whether it be three score and 10, whether it be four score, whether it be 100. My dad died in December at 98. The night before he said, if I don't wake up in the morning, don't you worry about me. That's what he told the people that were caring for him. I'll be with Jesus. It's all like this. You realize that? It's like this. Yes, we're to be good stewards of what time we have here. We have a gospel to spread while we're here. God has his purposes for us here and for his glory. But there is an age to come, even if it begins in an intermediate state upon our death. But the presence of our spirits in the presence of our risen Lord Jesus Christ We need to live in worship and work and labor in light of the age to come. Worship of God is glorious. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your worship that you have prescribed It pleases us to please You by mining Your Word to see what You say we must do. We come into the assembly and it's extraordinarily edifying for us. Father, I thank You for the elders of this church. I thank You for the faithfulness of the ministry of the Gospel from this pulpit for these many years. Over 25 years. Lord, stir our hearts to count it joy. Our greatest joy when we come into the assembly. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.