Well, let's continue worshiping, dear congregation, as we come to the ministry of God's word. I invite you to take your Bibles this morning, turn in them to Zechariah chapter one. Zechariah chapter one. And this morning, we are going to be considering the second vision. It is one of the shortest visions in the book of Zechariah. And you're gonna find it in chapter one, verses 18 through 21. So, Zechariah chapter one, verses 18 through 21. Let's give our attention to the reading of God's word. The prophet says, and I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four horns. And I said to the angel who talked with me, what are these? And he said to me, these are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen, and I said, what are these coming to do? He said, these are the horns that scatter Judah so that no one raised his head, and these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter it. That's far the reading of God's word. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever, and we are grateful for it. Would you join with me in bowing your head and ask the Lord for help one last time this morning? Father God, we're grateful for the promise of the new heavens and the new earth, but I think that it's probably fair to say that many of us find ourselves saying things like this. I know I have heaven, but I am struggling now. We confess, Father, that that's where we're at oftentimes. Father, I pray that you would help us to connect the pieces. I pray that through dwelling on the promise of the future, that which is what you created the universe to be and was lost through the first Adam such that you had to send the second Adam to redeem it and make it what you intended it to be. I pray, Father, that that would be for us something that would draw us like a tractor beam to two things, our identity and promise. Father, give us identity and promise such that we don't look around the world in the things that it offers and the people that surround us and the possessions that we acquire and accumulate and try to ground our identity and promise in those things, for they shall burn. but rather, Father, that we would be so smitten, as it were, so taken up with our identity that you have given us in the heavenly places where Christ is seated at your right hand, that, Father, we would be given perspective, and with it, a peace that surpasses all understanding. May we be promise people, not petty people. May we be promise people, and not people who dwell on the petty things that surround us. confront us day in and day out. Father, may Your Word do that very thing this morning. Help Your servant to give us ears to hear and eyes to see, and we ask these things in Christ's name, amen. One of the most powerful feats of animal strength that I've really ever seen, unfortunately it was not in person, it was on the Animal channel, Animal Kingdom, Animal Planet, but it was one of those things where I was just sitting on the couch watching the episode about the Animal Kingdom and the kids were watching it and I was probably working on my computer, not really paying attention until they begin to describe how two rams face off. Two rams get into, boys and girls, something of a dueling match, but they don't have a long joust. They have horns on the top of their heads. And they start from one end and the other on the other, and they run at full speed, and boom, they collide. And if you watch it, it's like, wow, they probably need an aspirin after something like that. But they don't, because God made them to sustain such a collision. I'm kind of weird, so I went in and I wanted to answer the question, how much power, how much strength is in the collision of those ram's horns? And I found out, some geek did a dissertation on it. These violent clashes produce forces of up to 3,400 newtons. Not fig newtons. 3,400 newtons. You're like, okay, you gotta help me out. I don't know what that means. That's 60 times higher than the force necessary to fracture a human skull. That is five times more than the muzzle energy of a .357 Magnum handgun round. All in the collision of ram's horns. Well, hopefully that can paint a picture for you this morning of why in the Bible often God, through his servants, will talk about the horn as a symbol of strength. It's why, as we read in Luke chapter one, Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and speaking about the Messiah that John the Baptist was gonna prepare a way for, described him as a horn of salvation. A horn of salvation. A strength of power of salvation encompassed in a horn. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning because Zechariah in his second vision sees four horns. And they're not good guys, they're bad guys. But there are four horns, four bad guys if you will, boys and girls, nations if you will, that have extreme power. So just remember, before we get into this vision, God has sent out scouts into all the earth, and they've come back with a report, and that report is that all the earth is at rest. And boys and girls, remember that that is not a good thing, that is a bad thing. What that means is that the earth is at rest, the deep sea, the depths of the sea, the satanic kingdom, the powers that work through the nations and through the powers in the high places are at peace. But God had made a promise that the opposite would be the case. It would be the worldly powers through which Satan and his hordes were working that would be churning like the depth of the sea. They would be in agony, they would be in pain, they would be crying out for help, and it would be Israel who would be at peace. And so, we see this second vision that God's gonna do something about that. He is going to give what you might call a reversal of fortunes, a reversal of fortunes. So remember, he scouted the earth, and remember, this is very important, We are looking at an Old Testament prophecy where the prophet is describing things in post-exilic terms, in terms that somebody in post-exilic Palestine would understand. And so you must make the connection that it doesn't necessarily mean that it's literally gonna play out that way, God is painting a picture for us of how He is going to send His Son from heaven and put down, if you will, the rebel forces, put down the occupiers who are invading God's land and contaminating it and perverting it with their rulings and their governors and their calling right wrong and wrong right. But He gives us pictures, and I want you to, I just want you to take a moment and thank God for that. I thank God that he gives us pictures sometimes. I mean, I love reading Paul, don't get me wrong. I remember I was told one time that a lawyer who wasn't even a Christian memorized the whole book of Romans. Why? Because he was absolutely amazed with Paul's impeccable logic. You just lay it out, it's linear, it's very Western, right? It's didactic. We go to it and we're like, okay, there's a logical syllogism, major premise, minor premise, conclusion. But sometimes God also says, I'm not gonna so much give you logic, it's not as if logic is not in these pictures, but I'm gonna give you pictures because I want you, especially you creative types, to envision what it is I'm going to do, not just tell you God's gonna judge the living and the dead. We confess that, we love that, we embrace it. but we want to imagine it. You see, God is a God of creativity. We can't put God in a box. And I'm glad that we can't put them in a box, and I'm glad that he gives us handles, if you will, through poetic pictures. So this vision is going to give us a picture of what God is going to do through Jesus Christ at the end of the age. And here is the main message. If I could put it in a pregnant sentence, it would be this. The horns which have caused the heads of God's people to hang in shame, that is the horns of the nation in all ages, will one day be cut off by a superior horn who will lift the heads of his people in glory. That's what we're gonna see, very simply. So let's consider then first, what are these horns? What are these horns? What are these horns and how are horns used in the Hebrew Bible so that we can have a key for understanding that? Well, look at verses 18 and 19 once again. The prophet says, I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four horns. And I said to the angel who spoke with me, what are these? And he said to me, these are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem." Now, we've already seen that horns are oftentimes spoken of or described as horns on an animal. I mean, you see this in Psalm 22 verse 21. It's the horns of a wild ox that the psalmist says, It's coming to lower its head and basically thrust its lethal horns upward, okay? That's what this wild ox is doing, and it's seen as a threat to God's people. But I want you to notice also, and you don't need to turn there, I'm gonna give you a very brief thumbnail sketch, and this is very important for us as we look at Zechariah. that these horns who are scattering Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem are also spoken of in Daniel chapter seven and Daniel chapter eight, and they're described as political powers that are coming to scatter the people of God. Let me just give you a little taste of it. In Daniel chapter 8 verse 3, there is a ram, and this ram has two horns, and later the interpretive angel tells Daniel that that ram with two horns represents Medo-Persia, and this is the kingdom under which Zechariah currently finds himself. In Daniel 8 verse 5 and then later in verse 21, he describes a goat that basically has one horn. It's a unicorn, but then this unicorn sprouts more horns and now it has four horns. And later, Daniel is told that that horn, that goat with the unicorn and then the four horns describes the nation of Greece. And then the fourth beast, we're told, had 10 horns. This is interesting. Had 10 horns, and then out of one of those horns, a little horn emerged, and this horn was speaking great blasphemies, great and awful things. And John, in the book of Revelation, actually picks up on this, and he connects it to this antichrist power. And again, I just want to remind you, as we talk about Antichrist and the beast and all these things, you have to understand, and John tells us in his epistle in 1 John, it's not so much that there's only one Antichrist, it's that there is a spirit of Antichrist that in John's day, according to 1 John, is already in the world. So there are antichrists and then there is the antichrist, there is one that is coming, more than likely future. But there is an antichrist spirit, there is a zeitgeist of antichrist, a spirit of the age that is antichrist in its very makeup. And it expresses itself in many different ways and it expresses itself through the powers that be. But we're told that this little horn that comes out of one of the tin horns makes war against the saints. And these horns are used to picture hostile political powers who assault and oppress the people of God. Now, notice, and you don't need to turn there, but you will find in Daniel chapter seven, verses two and three, where the origin of these horns are. Daniel tells us that he saw in his vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. Isn't that interesting? As we went back and looked at the motif of the deep of the sea, we saw that it was the satanic kingdom, and it is precisely out of this satanic kingdom that Satan is summoning these political powers who will act as dupes and lackeys to accomplish his purposes on the earth. And remember, Satan is trying to counterfeit God's creative power, just as God brought order out of the deep, brought life out of the deep, so Satan is bringing his henchmen out of the deep to do the opposite of what God intended to do, to scatter the people of God. Now, I just wanna say, as we think about applying this, it's important at this point to recognize your helplessness. I know that sounds on the surface very depressing, okay, but I think sometimes, especially certain of our generations that are represented here, we were brought up with this idea that you can do anything you want. You can do anything you set your mind to. We can recall Disney songs that are in our head. You know, when you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart's desire will come to you. Boy, that's a bad thing to tell little kids. And we have this, and there's a sense in which that's true. You can do perhaps more than you think you can. You have a lot of potential, there's no doubt about that. God has made you in his image. You are to take dominion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I think sometimes in the midst of a political climate, we have overly grandiose ideas of what we can and cannot accomplish. Let me tell you something, I mean, we must realize in the midst of whatever age we find ourselves in, where there are powers that to one degree or another are oppressing the church and oppressing the people of God, that we are at the mercies of God Almighty. We are utterly dependent upon Him. Okay? And let me tell you this, it's not a matter, nor is it a matter of this political system versus this political system. There's no doubt that some political systems, economic systems, are better than others. But let's be honest with ourselves, it doesn't take more than a first year history student to know, as he looks out on the landscape and survey of history, that every kind of political system has been used to oppress the people of God. Be it communism, socialism, democracy, a republic, whatever it is, there can be within that system powers that be that will oppress and have oppress the people of God. So we do not look, beloved, we do not look to getting a particular political system in power. We should do our citizen's duty and vote and we should do what we can. But really, we are helpless in the sight of a holy God. One of the immediate points of application that arises in this episode of the Horned Nation's hostility toward the people of our God is that we depend on Him. And you know what? When we look over to our brothers and sisters in the church in China, that's the exact thing that we see them doing. And what does the church in China remind us of? The church can thrive in the soil of communism. Think about that for a second. The church can thrive in the soil of communism. And I just have a question that I'm just going to leave in your lap and you go home and think about and pray about and meditate upon. Should our concern be more about changing political outcomes or more about being faithful in the political outcome in which we find ourselves? What does faithfulness look like in this context? And I am not saying that you don't try to do both. There's a place for trying to do both. But we all know you can't do everything at the same time, and we all know that everything can't be a priority. Sometimes I, well, I lay in bed with my kids at night. I give them both about 10 minutes or so, and I always ask them, you know, what was your favorite part of the day? And my little one, little Caleb, who knows, he's probably getting a spanking right now, my little one says, well, here were my favorite parts of the day, and he gives me like four or five, and I'm like, okay, well, I mean, by definition, favorite means one, right? Okay, that's the definition. And at the same way, there's only one priority, there's only one overall prevailing disposition that drives you as a person, whether it's money, whether it's fame, whether it's acceptance, whether it's being popular, or whether it's glorifying the all-living God. So what does that look like in the context of the political climate in which we find ourselves? And there's a reason why the saints in all ages, just like our covenant Lord in Zechariah chapter 1 verse 12, there's a reason why they cry out, how long? How long? How long? You want to know why? Because the hostility is not simply toward God's people, but I want you to notice secondly that the horns are not only a rival to God's people, they're a rival to Yahweh Himself. They're a rival to the covenant Lord. I want you to look in Psalm 74, and I would ask you to turn there because I want you to see this. It's a very important point. Psalm 74 is the psalmist crying out to the Lord, saying, wake up, Lord, respectfully and reverently, and look at what they're doing to your people. Listen, Psalm 74, I want you to look at verse 7. The psalmist crying out to the Lord, they set your sanctuary on fire. They profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. Verse 8, they said to themselves, we will utterly subdue them. They burned all the meeting places of God in the land. Verse 10, how long, O Lord, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? Look at verse 18, remember this, oh Lord, how the enemy scoffs and how a foolish people reviles your name. Do you see a pattern there? Now I want you to look at Psalm 75 and look at verses four and five. I said to the boastful, do not boast, and to the wicked, do not lift up your, what? Horn. Do not lift up your horn on high and speak with haughty neck. You see what's going on here? The people of God in all ages have not simply said, God, they are attacking us, help us. They have said that, but really they are connecting two things. God, they are attacking us, and an attack on us is an attack on your name. This is why Jesus, when he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, what did he say? He said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Why did he say that? How is Paul, how is Saul at that time persecuting Jesus? He wasn't physically and literally persecuting Jesus, but I'll tell you what he was doing. He was throwing the people of God into jail and he was standing at the feet of cloaks as they were laid down as rocks were thrown at the head of Stephen and killing him. He was persecuting the body of Christ and Jesus so closely identifies himself with his people that to attack God's people is to attack God himself. And this is the concern of Zechariah, and it should be ours as well. So number one, the horns are the oppressive nations who attack the people of God. Number two, the horns are those who attack even God himself. But number three, and this goes with number two, I want you to consider the horns as rival altars and rival worship. And this is gonna be very important. It's important to notice that Way back in Exodus chapter 27, when God was giving instructions to Moses for the construction of the tabernacle, that he told him to put four horns on the altar. Isn't that interesting? Four horns on the altar. And some of you have seen on the internet depictions of the altar, both in the tabernacle and in the temple. And it's true, there are horns there. And why is that? There is rich symbolism to those horns. Once again, they are the power of God. What happens on the altar is the power of God. And this echoes and reverberates into Romans, does it not? The gospel, Paul says, is the power of God unto salvation. Because when Christ was slaughtered, when he was slayed, when he was placed on the altar, power of God was seen in bringing God and man together. The gospel is power. The altar is power. When God brings people together through the slaying of His Son, it is power. And is it interesting also, is it not, that God doesn't call for archers or for hunters, okay, to come and take care of the horns as if they are connected to an animal? He calls for craftsmen. And we'll come back to that in a second, but why? Well, it's very interesting. When you go back to the account of the tabernacle, it's very interesting to note that God gives certain gifting to certain men to construct certain things in the tabernacle and in the temple, right? So he called craftsmen, he called those who would fell trees and this and that. I happen to believe, I may be wrong, I happen to believe that these weren't necessarily men who that was their vocation, that's what they did. I actually believe God gave them a very special calling to do that very thing. He calls some to construct. He calls some to build up. But in this vision, he's calling some not to construction, but to destruction. He's calling these craftsmen to come and take care of these horns, to saw them off and to put them down. We'll come back to that in a second. But why? Why? When you conceive of this idea of four horns on an altar, it's very interesting when you go back to ancient Near Eastern literature that you find this constant theme that whenever people groups will build a temple, it is typically on a mountain, which by the way, this is fascinating, side point, when Ezekiel describes the garden of God, he describes it as a mountain. The garden of God was a mountain, and that's why later it is associated with Mount Zion. And it is that Mount Zion that is gonna be above and over all other creation when God comes back and reestablishes it. But because that's the case, The nation states have always tried to imitate this nation mountain with horns and altars. And the Enuma Elish, this is a Babylonian epic, they erected this place called Esagila. And Esagila was a ziggurat, and if you've ever seen it, it's like this a steeped mountain that goes up like this. Some of you have seen pictures of what artists believe to be a depiction of the Tower of Babel. And the Tower of Babel was thought to be a ziggurat, where they were building a temple up to God, really, not to worship him, but to try to overtake him. And what did, in the Babylonian epic of Enuma Elish, they put on the top of Esagila? Well, they built it up, and they put an altar, and it says that they raised the head, the head of Esagila on high. This mountain was seen conceptually as an idol. And the top altar was a head, and the text notes that once Marduk was enthroned there, they quote, looked up to its horns. And so this idle altar, this idle mountain, this rival to God's glory and majesty is put up, not only by the Babylonians, but in every age in many different ways and forms. The beast kingdom is an anti-Christ religious entity that is always challenging and rivaling God. The Antichrist kingdom was pictured in the Old Testament as political powers that not only wanted, as I said, to be God, but they wanted to be worshiped as such. Now you think about that a little bit. You think about that a little bit. We see examples all throughout history, but any time the state assumes to themselves the role of God, they are usurping their place. Let me tell you something. We think that in the Enlightenment, man got away from religion, okay? Because often when you read the history of philosophy, you'll read in the stage of the Enlightenment that man said, we are so enlightened and we are so smart and we have come to knowledge on our own terms that we don't need God anymore. I mean, you look in this Bible and it talks about a donkey speaking. I mean, come on. Who who lives in an age where there's electricity in walls and internet vibrating through the room and probably cooking our brain at the same time? Who can believe in a talking donkey? We are smarter than God. And there's almost a sense that man gets away from religion in the enlightenment. But you know the fact of the matter is, we've never really gotten away from religion. The religion has just changed. It has been a religion that has sought to take God off His throne and put man on His throne to where man is the measure. And if you read the book of Revelation, what you'll find time and time again, this is interesting, is that, you know, don't call to come back. Religion comes back with a fury, right? The state and the Antichrist, which I'm just going with my particular Baptist forefathers, is the Pope. They're going to come together, they're going to have a symposium, and they're going to have a plan to take over the world, like Pinky and the Brain, and they're going to impose upon the world their rule in the place of God. Do you know what Antichrist means? It means one who stands in the place of Christ. And it's interesting that, I don't wanna get too far down this road, but the Pope is called the Vicar of Christ, which in Latin is something like Antichrist. But anyways, you go home and think about that. So religion will make a comeback, but when the horns and the pseudo-religious heads upon which they rest are raised up, God will come and cut them off. I want you to look at number four this morning, at these four craftsmen as agents of vision. It says in verse 21 that these craftsmen have come to terrify the horns, and these four craftsmen are one for every horn of the pseudo-altar of this anti-Christ religion. And why are they coming? Well, we talked about this a little bit last week, so I'm not gonna belabor the point, but you can look at Jeremiah chapter 50, verse seven and 11. They're coming against the nations because we recognize that God does raise up and pull down nations. We recognize that 100%. And we recognize even sometimes and oftentimes that God raises up nations even to, I don't want to use the word punish His people, although that is the picture that we get in the Old Testament of Old Testament Israel. But when I read the book of Hebrews and it talks about what God does as a father to His children, as a father to His church. It says that He disciplines us because He disciplines those whom He loves. And we recognize in the sovereignty of God that He could raise up political powers to discipline His children, to draw them further out of the city of man and closer to the city of God. To put within their hearts a greater desire for, a greater panting after. Ardent cries that rise up like incense in the temple as prayers to God that His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Sometimes God will do that, but what happened then and is probably happening now is these nations, when they come in to do the work and the bidding of God, They overstep their authority. They go beyond their jurisdiction. And God says, I never gave you jurisdiction to punish my people in this way. And so he sends craftsmen. Now what's interesting about this word craftsmen, it's a very common word. It's actually somewhat difficult to translate because it's so generic. And some of your translations have blacksmiths, and I like that because the horns on the altar were made out of cast iron. And so if you're going to take those puppies off, what are you going to do? You're going to have to fire up a blowtorch, right? I mean, of course not back then, but there's going to be fire. There will be fire and there will be a cutting off of these horns. So just picture These blacksmiths coming in and they're feeding the fire. The fire of judgment is roaring up and getting prepared to take these horns off the altar. So God gets talent, as I said, for construction but also for destruction. And what do we see? Well, very simply, beloved, we see the reversal of fortune. Reversal of fortune. You know, this is in the book of Habakkuk in chapter two. I know because I've spent a lot of time on this, but in chapter two, there is this ode against Babylon for all that she has done. And really what it is, is it's a funeral dirge, okay? Something that people normally would sing at a funeral when they say, oh, how the mighty have fallen. Oh, you know, like David did about Saul, right? Oh, how the mighty have fallen. And they're singing this funeral dirge as if to say, oh, it's such an injustice that this happened. And oh, we missed this person. What a great leader. But in Habakkuk chapter two, Israel is singing a reverse funeral dirge where they're talking about, oh, how great that the mighty have fallen. And they're celebrating the fact that this person has fallen down. And this is what is happening with these craftsmen. And as you look back you see history littered with ways in which this has happened. Mankind builds up Babel to take over God and an angel comes down and curses it with linguistic bewilderment and they are scattered. A golden image of Nebuchadnezzar is lifted up in pride to heaven but was smitten by the messianic stone that comes in in the form of a mountain and collapses it into dust and it disappears. In the book of Daniel, the cosmic tree that grows up onto heaven is an image of Nebuchadnezzar's greatness. It was felled at the command of the holy watchers who had come down from heaven. And what does God do to Nebuchadnezzar? He reduces his human glory to bestial groveling, total reversal, and that's what God is going to do at the end of the age. He's going to cut off these horns. How he's going to do it, I don't know, but he's given us a picture that he will. Well, number five, how does this apply to Christ and his work? Well, I think I wanna ask two questions very simply. Throughout history, we see intrusions of this final judgment. Please listen to me very carefully, because this is very important. There's coming on the final day, beloved, an intrusion of God's wrath, God's judgment into the now time. But throughout history, God will give examples of that. He will intrude history with an example of His judgment. When the Assyrians came in 722 and sacked Israel, that was an intrusion of God's judgment. When the Babylonians came in 586-87 and burned the temple down, that was an intrusion of God's judgment. In 70 AD, when God sent the Romans and Titus to destroy Jerusalem and sack it, that was an intrusion of God's judgment. And God gives intrusions of judgment even now. He will send hardship, He will send trial in order to remind us that there is a judgment that is coming and that we might flee to Christ as a result. And when Christ came in His first coming, what did He do? Well, God raised up a rival horn of salvation as we read in Luke chapter one. A horn of salvation, Jesus Christ, who is superior to these pseudo-horns. He is the original horn, and all the pseudo-horns throughout history have been trying to counterfeit Him. What happened in the first coming of Jesus Christ? Jesus said to the disciples, I saw Satan falling down from heaven. And then we see this expanded upon in Revelation chapter 12. Not only did Satan fall from heaven, but John tells us in Revelation chapter 20 that he was bound. And people get so confused about what that means. They say, well, how can he be bound? But then Peter says that he goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. If you look at Revelation 20 very carefully, it gives a purpose clause as to why he was bound. He was bound so that he can no longer deceive the nations. Now think about that for a second. Since the first century, Christianity started out as a ragbag band of 12 disciples, very, very small, and then 70 disciples, and then 2,000 years later, what has happened? It has spread throughout all the earth. Why? Because the nations who were formerly deceived by the work of Satan and his hordes, God has stopped that activity by binding him so that he can no longer deceive the nations, and he sends out missionaries into the world to fulfill the great commission, and now Christianity has spread throughout the world. That's a beautiful thing. I feel like a post-millennialist right now. I mean, the kingdom is just spreading. But what is happening in the meantime? Satan rages, Revelation 12, 12. He rages. John tells us, therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them, but woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short. He knows, and His raging is our rejoicing, beloved. His raging is our rejoicing because we know as well that His time is short. We know that God will at His time send forth those blacksmiths, those craftsmen, to cut off these pseudo heads, pseudo horns. What will happen at Christ's second coming? Well, Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire, and what was started at the first coming will be completed. So let me just give a few thoughts finally on application here, beloved. Listen, there's a reason why Paul says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. There's a reason for that. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. They're not carnal. We do have a foot in this world. We've got our citizen of this kingdom hat on, but we've also got a foot in this world of the kingdom of God. And if there's going to be any change, if there's more importantly going to be an attitude cultivated within the people of God that allows us to persevere in times of political oppression, what we need to do is use the weapons that the Lord has given us to accomplish that. And what are they? Beloved, it's prayer. Okay, it's evangelism, it's discipleship, and it is corporate worship. You need all four of those things, those spiritual weapons to maintain the right attitude, to remember where the power comes and where it does not come from, to remember your identity in Jesus Christ, and to remember the promise that he has given to his covenant people. We need to be a people who are marked by cultivation of these things. And why evangelism and why discipleship? Listen, beloved. The oppressive kingdoms are expanding. We need to expand. How do we expand? We expand by evangelism. People talk about evangelism by procreation. That's great. Have kids and fill the earth, but we need to do more than that. We need to evangelize those children who we do have, that's kind of the hub out of which we work, but then we need to go out and expand the kingdom of God by expanding its realm, by sharing this message and trusting that the Lord will take up those feeble efforts and cause regeneration to drop in the hearts and minds of His people. So we must pray, we must evangelize, we must worship. Why are we worshiping? Well, number one, God has commanded us to, but number two, beloved, you need to constantly keep the mission of the church before you. You need to constantly keep your identity before you, the promises before you, and we do that in corporate worship. Some people say, well, I read my Bible throughout the week and I'm reminded of that. Great, but there's another part to corporate worship. You need to come and remind your brother. You need to come and remind your sister. You need to lift up their drooping arms and their drooping hands. It's not just what I get, it's what I give as a brother and sister in the Lord, standing on the banks of the Jordan about to enter, waiting for God to send the signal from heaven for us to storm the gates into the new heavens and the new earth. That's what we do in worship. And we do it under the head of Jesus Christ, who John describes in Revelation 5 as the one who had seven horns and seven eyes. And even now, beloved, the rider is upon the red horse, and he's dispatching his servants of the horn to survey the landscape of the world in preparation for judgment. You know, the horns also depicted something else. I don't know if you remember, but when Solomon had not yet been anointed as king, there was a rival king, his name was Adonijah, and he tried to get a party going to get him anointed, and they did, and things seemed to be going all right, and then Solomon came in on a donkey, picture of our Lord, and he was anointed as king, and Adonijah was so scared, and rightfully so, that Solomon was going to kill him. Where did he go? He went to the tabernacle, and he held on to the horns of the altar, and he said, I will not leave, I will not leave, and he knew what he was doing. Nobody's gonna slay him there. He was safe there. And is Jesus Christ not the safe place where the people can go away from the wrath of God? And this morning, you can go away from the wrath of God that, by the way, is over you and is being poured out over you in this world, Romans 1, 16, by fleeing to Jesus Christ. How do I do that? You turn from your sins and you believe in Him. And I'll leave you with this one last thought. When you do, You know that scene when Abraham took his son up to be sacrificed? And it's a beautiful story. He takes his son up there, and he's like, oh, Lord, Abraham, where's the lamb? Oh, the Lord will provide. And he gets up to the top, and there's no lamb, and he knows that the jig is up. But then all of a sudden, he's got that knife in the air, and he's about to plunge it into his son's heart, and the angel says, stop. And he provides for him over here on the side, a what? A ram. I've always wondered to myself, why a ram, Lord? Like, I don't know, like did something get lost in the transmission history? Shouldn't it be a lamb? No, I think it was a very intentional sign. That ram was what? He was caught in the thicket. Why do you think he was caught? Because of his horns. His horns of power were muted at the first coming. His horns of power were silenced at the first coming. As He stood before Herod, He could have called thousands of legions of angels to come down and inflict judgment, but His horns were caught in the thicket in that first coming. It's in the second coming that those horns will be released from the thicket, and He will come with rage and fury to judge the living and the dead. And it's only if you are in the protection of that ram that that fury will not be for you, but it will have been taken upon himself. So beloved, this morning, if you are not a believer, turn from your sins, believe in Jesus. If you are a believer, come back once again to the place of protection where God and man meet, the place of refuge, Jesus Christ, the foot of the cross, and you shall be saved. Let's pray. Father God, your mercy indeed is more, so much more. And beyond that, Father, your grace is more, more than we deserve. Father, help us to see your son shining in all his brilliance this morning through the preaching of your word. May we come in humility of heart and mind and bow down at this altar of refuge through faith in Jesus Christ, we pray in Christ's name, amen. Let's stand this morning for the doxology.